Progressive Democrats: Please stop using the term "forced busing"

[StarfishSaver]

First, there isn't and never was such thing as "forced busing." What we're really talking about is "forced desegregation."

"Forced busing" - the pejorative and intentionally inflammatory term for court-ordered desegregation - was actually not the issue during the busing controversies in the 1970s - it was just a convenient and obviously very effective strawman. It's language designed to trigger white resentment, as Lee Atwater himself admitted and, in fact, bragged about.

Calling court-ordered desegregation "forced busing" is like referring to court-ordered recognition of gay marriage as "forced cake baking."

Millions of schoolchildren were bused every day for decades, often to schools miles away from their homes (even when other schools were closer). The bus was simply the mode of transportation used to take children to school.

The real issue was school reassignments ordered by courts after local school districts refused to comply with the constitutional requirements to stop segregating their schools based on race.

Many districts did this voluntarily. Because they did so on their own, there were no lawsuits, no court litigation and no need for judges to order them to do anything. They just did it.

But many districts refused to desegregate, rebuffed black parents' entreaties to provide equal educational opportunities for their children, dug in their heels, retrenched and said 'hell no." So the black parents had to go to court and sue for their children's civil rights.

The result of many of those suits was the courts ordering the school districts to develop plans to reassign students in order to overcome the long pattern of educational and housing segregation and discrimination that kept black children trapped in segregated, inferior schools.

The school districts and many white parents were furious about this. But most of the anger wasn't about the buses since there was no requirement that their kids ever get on a bus to get to school. They were upset about desegregation - the desegregation they had resisted in the 20 years after Brown and that was not being "forced" on them the way state and local governments are not being "forced" to recognize gay marriage or to register all eligible voters to vote, regardless of race. Many were also angry that their children might have to attend a previously all-black school they seemed inferior - a clear acknowledgement that black children were being being subjected to conditions that were viewed as unacceptable for white children.

But here's the thing. "Forced busing" i.e., court ordered school desegregation was ONLY "forced" because school officials, with the full support of many white parents, openly defied the law. If they had complied with the law and stopped discriminating against black children, there would have been no need for the courts to step in and "force" them to do anything.

So the distinction between "voluntary" desegregation and so-called "forced" busing is pure bull, nothing but subterfuge and obfuscation of the real issue that was at play.

What we're really talking about is the difference between local government officials obeying the law and local officials breaking the law in order to continue denying constitutional rights to their black citizens.

A court order to follow the law isn't "forced" anything and a court isn't out of line or overstepping or "interfering in local matters" when it requires local government officials to obey the law. It's what they're SUPPOSED to do.

So please stop adopting and repeating a long-standing right wing term that is
it only grossly inaccurate, but was created and used to divide, frighten and conquer.

[snowybirdie]

1. Please tell me why

This discussion is necesary? Our current problems are numerous enough! Let's move on.

[Honeycombe8]

2. So "forced busing" upsets you?

You're uncomfortable with calling something what it is, factually?

"Forced busing" is one WAY to effect "forced desegregation." But there are other ways. Busing is a method, a process, a means to an end. Desegregation is the stated end.

Busing and desegregation are two different things.

If Harris wants to institute forced busing, it should be called that, because that's what it is. If however she wants to devise a plan to force more desegregation, which would involve different methods, that's a different thing.

Let's not get into denying facts and reality for political reasons. People should call things what they are.

[StarfishSaver]

5. Busing wasn't forced and it wasn't what people objected to

Children were and are bused every day for purposes unrelated to desegregation. No one protests, no one calls it "forced busing," no one demanded that federal funds be pulled or constitutional amendments be passed to stop it. It's just transportation to school when the school is more than walking distance from home. and millions of school children attend school more than walking distance from their home for all kinds of reasons having nothing to do with the segregation.

Time people reacted this way to busing was when it was used for desegregation. , And as I described, that opposition occurred in communities that had resisted the segregation for decades and were so intractable and defiant in their resistance that the courts had to finally step in and force them to desegregate their schools. And the opposition was just a strong even when the court-ordered desegregation plans included reassignments to schools within walking distance. It was the reassignment they were protesting, not the transportation

This had nothing to do with the buses. It had everything to do with the desegregation.

[Honeycombe8]

7. "Busing wasn't forced and it wasn't what people objected to."

That's as much a sentence in denial of reality as saying the grass is blue, when it's green.

I am older than Harris and remember forced busing. Yes, it was forced. And yes, it was the busing that people objected to. It was hard on the children and made no sense. Also, some communities did not need to "force busing" to effect desegregation, because the kids could take regular buses, walk, or their parents drop them off.

"Forced busing" was a regulated method of trying to reach a goal. It's almost never a good idea to ram a method down the throats of people. It's the end result that maters. Communities are in the best position of deciding the best method for their area. And it didn't fix the problem of having poor public schools and rich public schools. The fed could help solve that by outlawing the method of funding public schools by district school taxes. But they can't because of "state's rights."

It's like having a supervisor at work tell you what to do, and then start micromanaging HOW you should do it. Maybe the supervisor should just start doing all the jobs at the business, rather than hire people.

If the fed wants to take over all schools and start micromanaging them, just do it, instead of trying to micromanage how the communities manage their own schools.

[StarfishSaver]

8. I think you're wrong. But let's assume you're correct. Please answer this:

After a community refused to desegregate it's schools voluntarily over a 15- to 20-year period, black parents went to court to enforce the law, and a federal court ruled after a long and involved trial with extensive, irrefutable evidence of intentional discrimination, that the schools were indeed unconstitutionally segregated and must be desegregated, how do you propose the school district should have gone about complying with the law and desegregating their schools "with all deliberate speed" as the Supreme Court had ordered in 1954?

[Honeycombe8]

10. I'm not going to address each and every community in the U.S. That's ridiculous.

Any community that wanted to force busing was free to do so. All the fed did was not mandate it at the federal level.

Any community that did not want to do it that way, didn't have to.

You may disagree with that. Reasonable people can and do disagree about the best way to do different things...like providing health care to everyone, ensuring affordable higher education, minimum wage, how to protect the environment, how to deal with climate change, how to deal with imigration, etc.

[StarfishSaver]

12. I didn't ask you to address each and every community. I asked you what how you thought a community

that had resisted desegregation until they were ordered by a court to integrate their schools should go about doing it if you think busing shouldn't have been a factor.

How about just picking one community and answering the question? You said you remember this well and seem to believe you are very well-informed about what occurred and what was wrong with the way it was done. So, given your knowledge about the busing issue, please share how you think that desegregation should have been accomplished if desegregation without busing was the wrong course of action.

This is a serious question.

[MichMan]

27. Instead of riding a bus a couple miles to the Junior HS near home, I was forcibly transferred

to a JHS across town ( in the same district) that required a 45 minute ride EACH WAY daily. It was a colossal waste of time and virtually prevented most kids from extra curricular activities, as there was no way to get home once the bus left.

I attended an urban district where once you got to High School the racial mix was naturally 50/50 anyway.

[RobinA]

32. I Was In

a similar district. The high school was naturally not segregated, the elementary school were segregated by geography because they were more local.

Everybody hated busing, both black and white. It took kids out of their communities and plunked them down with a bunch of strangers. The bussed kids really had a rough time.

[riverine]

3. Forced or not, long distance busing was about as popular as gonorrhea back in the 70s

It is time to move on since dredging that old argument up won't help Democrats.

[StarfishSaver]

21. It may be time to "move on," but it's also time to stop using right wing code words when discussing

civil rights.

[Turin_C3PO]

4. I've been disturbed at the right wing talking points

I’ve been seeing in these forums. It’s disturbing.

I agree with everything you wrote, btw.

[StarfishSaver]

6. Thank you.

[mopinko]

9. and here is the thing- schools are still very segregated

and a lot of those that are "integrated" still discriminate against kids of color in a whole lot of ways.

white allies kicked the can down the road, and it is still rolling.
whatever they think they accomplished back then, it is time to admit that it failed.

[Honeycombe8]

11. Busing kids around doesn't solve the problem.

The problem is the neighborhoods (kids go to schools in their district, which are funded by the homeowners in that district).

The problem is also the method of funding schools, which results in "rich" schools and "poor" schools. I saw this as unfair, when I was a child. Why should a child have to go to a "poor" school because of where she lived, when all children getting a public education in the state should have equal access to school funding? Busing does nothing to address that.

Busing is also unnecessary in many instances. I rode a bus to my district's white lower middle class school. All teachers in the state were paid the same, so the level of teaching was the same, theoretically. But it wasn't as nice as the rich district schools, I guess. No equipment for special extracurricular activities, no air conditioning (in the deep humid south), everything was old (old school bldg, old desks, old everything). But the teachers were as good as anywhere else.

If the fed or state had decreed that I should go to a black school, "forced busing" would have been unnecessary. Unless they wanted to send me to a black school far away...but there was one much closer. So forced busing was unnecessary in many instances.

Dictate the goal. Not the method of getting there. If the goals weren't met, that's a failure of the fed in not having a follow-up to ensure the goals were met, citations for failing to meet the goals, etc. Has nothing to do with the method.

[StarfishSaver]

14. You keep saying that "forced busing" wasn't the answer, but what WAS the answer?

"If the fed or state had decreed that I should go to a black school, "forced busing" would have been unnecessary. Unless they wanted to send me to a black school far away...but there was one much closer. So forced busing was unnecessary in many instances. "

This is true. And when a child could be assigned to a school close to their home, it wasn't necessary to bus them. They were only bused in those instances in which the schools were too far away. That was more often the case because the whole point of residential segregation was to keep white neighborhoods as separate as possible from black neighborhoods, so although sometimes the school was close, it was more likely than not that there were no black schools within walking distance of most white neighborhoods. That was the point.

But in many instances, school districts could simply and easily redraw their school assignment lines so that kids just went to a different school that wasn't too far away from their homes. Sometimes, in fact, the school was actually closer. And you know what? White parents STILL objected even thought their kids didn't have to go near a bus.

But you don't seem to be able to come up with a better solution than school reassignments - and that more often than not required children to go to school farther away - because the placement of the schools was done strategically to create and maintain segregation. That couldn't be overcome by wishful thinking - children had to get to the schools. And, as someone here said the other day, if the kids could have been magically transported to school, the parents still would have objected because it wasn't the bus, it was the desegregation that they objected to.

[Honeycombe8]

22. I'm done with this subject.

If you want to solve that issue, get together a panel of reps from across the nation, all the large and small communities, and solve the problem.

[StarfishSaver]

23. It's easy to say it was done wrong, but not so easy to come up with a solution, isn't it?

You seem to think that no one in these communities ever tried to solve the problem before but, instead, the federal government just footstomped in to town and ordered kids to get on buses.

People desperately tried to come up with solutions but those solutions were rejected because those communities didn't want to desegregate. So the black parents whose children continued to be trapped in inferior segregated schools took the school districts to court and the courts ordered them to desegregate. Had those local governments not refused to desegregate without being hauled into courtand worked with the parents, black and white, they could have come up with a solution - just like those who did work together to develop voluntary desegregation plans that often involved busing.

So it's easy in hindsight to say they did it wrong and they should have done it differently. But you have offered no better alternative - in fact, no alternative at all - for how it could have been done differently and better.

[Phoenix61]

13. I have absolutely no idea where or when you grew up

Schools were segregated because communities were segregated. The only way to achieve integrated schools was to bus children from one neighborhood to another. In my community, no one was happy about it. Both groups of children walked to the school they had attended to be bussed across town to attend a different school to achieve racial integration. I understand why that was important but it was forced bussing.

[StarfishSaver]

15. The busing wasn't forced. The desegregation was forced. The buses were just the transportation

And many of the children didn't have to be bused. They were close enough to walk. And the parents still objected.

As I said, "forced busing" was the public relations handle used by the anti-desegregation forces. But they revealed a "tell" that exposed their true purpose - when they went to court or tried to get Congress to stop the efforts, they didn't ask that only "busing" be stopped but the school reassignments that didn't require busing to be maintained. Their lawsuits targeted the ENTIRE desegregation plan, not just the parts that assigned children to schools farther away.

If this were really about "forced busing," the legal challenges would have attacked ONLY the parts of the plans that required children to be bused. But they didn't. They attacked the desegregation plans themselves, not the busing.

This wasn't about objections to the bus. This was about objections to desegregation.

[Turin_C3PO]

16. Funny how a lot of the opponents

to “forced busing” didn’t have a problem sending their kids hours away to maintain segregation.

[StarfishSaver]

19. Indeed

And they also didn't have a problem with black children being bused miles out of the way, past one or more white schools, to get to their segregated schools.

Not to mention the bizarro aspect of people claiming they were so committed to maintaining the integrity of their neighborhoods and "neighborhood schools" that as soon as black children started attending them (and black families started moving into their neighborhoods), they pulled up stakes, abandoned their beloved neighborhood and schools and moved out to the suburbs.

This wasn't about "forced busing." It was about "forced desegregation."

It wasn't about the bus, it was about us.

[Phoenix61]

17. As I stated, in the Deep South, where I grew up

The entire town was segregated. The only way to achieve integration was busing so yes, it was forced, as was integration.

[StarfishSaver]

20. Everyone claimed to be in favor of integration. They just didn't want to integrate.

[StarfishSaver]

18. If the true concern was the distance their children had to travel to get to a black school

Why were these people gathered in their own neighborhoods attacking the buses of black children coming in to go to their schools? Why did they gather and force black children to run a gauntlet of screaming, angry mobs blocking entrance to their "neighborhood schools" if their actual concern was that their own children had to ride a bus to another part of town?

This wasn't Little Rick, Arkansas in 1957 or Birmingham, Alabama in 1963. It was Boston, Massachusetts in 1975.

And these people weren't attacking these black schoolchildren because they were worried about their children having to ride a bus across town.



They were doing this because they didn't want the black children to attend the schools in their neighborhood.

This wasn't about the bus. It was about us...

Boston Globe

The administration had been preparing for this day since US District Judge W. Arthur Garrity Jr.’s decision in June to end public school segregation and bypass an intransigent elected School Committee that had long resisted doing anything about it. Garrity’s ruling had been hailed by many as a long-overdue civil rights victory. Black residents had fought for better education and schools, and thought of this as one way to achieve that goal. But many parents vehemently rebelled, especially in South Boston, one of several neighborhoods picked for the first phase of the desegregation process.
...

(The driver of the bus carrying black children into South Boston) emerged from the rotary and turned right onto Dorchester Street. As soon as he made the turn, he saw the crowd in the street. At least 100 people blocked the way, yelling and gesturing in anger. Before he could react, he heard a thud, the sound of something heavy striking the side of the bus. A second later, glass shattered behind him. And he heard the children on his bus start screaming. What the hell is happening? ... Now, it seemed he was entering some other, uglier world. The kind of hate he’d seen on TV, in the South but never in his city – it was here now, right in front of him. But there wasn’t time to dwell on his shock. He had to get the children out of harm’s way, as fast as he could.
...
He kept rolling up the street, more bricks slamming into the sides of the bus. They’re tearing us up, he thought. People on the street were at the back door of the bus now, trying to pull it open. “Hold the door!” Richardson hollered at the kids in the back of the bus. “Hold on, don’t let them open it!”

He could hear people outside yelling racial slurs. He could hear the children on the bus, crying harder. He took a left, trying to find a way out. He drove to the end of West Eighth Street and ran into D Street. There, at the corner, he realized his mistake. They were surrounded by another crowd, bigger and more furious than the first. Bricks were flying, with few windows left to stop them. Richardson told the kids to lie down on the floor, but the kids were lying down already.

He turned left on D Street, left again onto Dorchester Avenue. At Andrew Station, the MBTA train stop, he saw other school buses gathered. He wasn’t the only driver who had been forced to turn back. The police were there, and ambulances, medics pulling shards of glass out of children’s heads.
...

“Niggers go home!” “Here we go Southie!”

“Why are they yelling at us?” someone on the bus said.
...

The petrified students walked in single file or rows of two through a gauntlet of police, news cameras, and photographers, and finally passed through the front doors. Phyllis did not hear the teachers saying “good morning” as she entered the building. She clung to the other black students. In a single bus ride they had been forever linked. They were in this together now.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/09/06/boston-busing-crisis-years-later/DS35nsuqp0yh8f1q9aRQUL/story.html?outputType=amp

[RobinA]

34. Well, In My Suburb

the hatred for busing was equal opportunity. Nobody liked their kid driven across town and sent to a new school where no one was from their neighborhood. Everybody hated it and it died out. Nowadays that school district is more desegregated than it was due to people naturally moving around, but it still has majority white/Asian schools and majority black/Mexican schools. No busing, although when they built the second middle school they placed it in majority white territory but just adjacent black territory so it could be naturally desegregated.

[StarfishSaver]

24. kick

[EffieBlack]

25. Imagine if someone said, "I'm not opposed to voluntary recognition of gay marriage. I just oppose

court-ordered recognition. It’s wrong for the federal government to force local governments to issue marriage licenses to gay couples.”

Or

I support protection of women's reproductive rights, as long as it’s purely voluntary. Otherwise, I just don’t think local governments should be forced by the federal government to comply with Roe v. Wade.”

Sounds crazy, right? Well, that’s exactly the argument people are using against “forced busing” aka, as you say, “forced desegregation.”

For some reason, some people think Brown v. Board of Education is the rare Supreme Court ruling protecting a constitutional right that local governments can follow purely at their own discretion - and if they don’t want to, they don’t have to.

[DonaldsRump]

26. EffieBlack, a key phrase of Brown v. BOE is "all deliberate speed"

Many states and localities used that mischievous phrase to drag their feet. If Brown had been more definite (e.g., US v. Nixon: "This mandate shall issue forthwith", which means SCOTUS's decision has immediate effect), there might not have been the need for busing in the 1970s.

Here's just one of many examples citing the problems with this phrase: https://americanhistory.si.edu/brown/history/6-legacy/deliberate-speed.html

This one phrase of "all deliberate speed" allowed many years to pass before Brown was truly enforced throughout the US.

[StarfishSaver]

30. +1000

[BlueTsunami2018]

28. Why is this an issue at all in 2019?

Our problems right now have to do with a criminal traitor in the White House and fascism that is no longer creeping but right at our front door.

Rehashing this stuff from decades ago seems pointless and counterproductive.

[DonaldsRump]

29. Because it divides us

In other words, it's "ratfuc*ing".

[StarfishSaver]

31. One of the ways it's used to divide us it with inaccurate code language like "forced busing"

[Delarage]

33. Russians, Russians, Russians

They'll stoke the flames until everyone here is doubting each other. Won't work on me. I'd vote for any sentient Democrat of any color in 2020. I used to thing straight-ticketing was not thoughtful, but now I just hit every "D" in the booth and move on.

[link:https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/24/race-russian-election-interference-senate-reports|

“They identified a vulnerability in this nation based on our racial history and our current reality and they exploited that vulnerability,” said Derrick Johnson, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

[CentralMass]

35. Here are a few good article on school segregation that are worth reading.

Getting some history and perspective on the subject cant hurt.

https://www.newsweek.com/2018/03/30/school-segregation-america-today-bad-1960-855256.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2013/08/29/report-public-schools-more-segregated-now-than-40-years-ago/

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/02/learning/lesson-plans/still-separate-still-unequal-teaching-about-school-segregation-and-educational-inequality.html

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/03/school-segregation-is-not-a-myth/555614/

[StarfishSaver]

36. Thanks

[CentralMass]

37. You are welcome .

[fescuerescue]

38. Are we really defending Busing now?

I guess the decades have dimmed a few memories.