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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   30024 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 21, 2024

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Will trans issues be seen as the weird 2010s, early 2020s political project that had ardent supporters, but eventually withered away and died like the desegregation bussing movement?

As a non-American, can you please explain that example? Was it the bussing part that got unceremoniously dropped, or the desegregation part, or both?

In the late 20th century there was a project to bus kids from majority minority schools to majority white ones. This did not go well, so it got dropped.

from majority minority schools to majority white ones

I see. Did it also take place the other way around?

So school desegregation was a big project of the 50s and 60s. But because kids attend local schools, and neighborhoods were segregated, lots of schools are pretty segregated without segregation.

So there was brief effort to live up to ideals and force schoolbuses to cross neighborhood lines. This was wildly unpopular, a bad idea, and ultimately binned.

Although not before causing sudden, massive and irreversible white flight in almost every jurisdiction where it has been used.

The Boston, MA public schools are less than 15% white now, as opposed to (IIRC) 80% in 1974 when busing began.

And Prince Georges County, MD: 79% white in 1971-72 school year, one year prior to busing.

3.9% white in 2021.

The bussing part.

I see. So I've read the other replies and I wonder in what way desegregation even remained as a policy after that. Is it basically just a case of politicians and officials paying lip service to an ideal, or are there tangible measures in place?

It remains insofar as you can't have an explicitly segregated school any more. If some non-white families happen to move into a previously all-white school district, their kids are going to that previously all-white school.

The bussing got dropped. No one seriously talks about sending busses of white kids to 99% or 100% black school districts miles away, or sending busses of black kids to 99% or 100% white school districts miles away anymore. People still occasionally talk about modern de facto school segregation, it's legacy, and how it still exists because of where people of different races live (according to them), but no one seriously suggests bussing as a solution anymore. Now, it's only ever brought up as a "look how horrible conservatives were to have racist protests against these busses of black kids!" example, but without actually defending or even really talking about the policy details of it.

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