Cincinnati Goddamn is certainly relevant to the times, but could have used tighter editing to cut down the length. The film also failed to take advantage of Michelle Alexander, but Manning Marable, local activists, and the Owensby family bring the horrific stories of Cincinnati police brutality to life. Marable, by far, was the best 'academic' interviewed in the documentary, particularly for highlighting the economic conditions and neoliberal push in urban policy and development across the US.
A deeper and more critical analysis would have done a better job placing racial segregation in the city into a broader perspective, highlighted mistakes made by the attorneys representing the family of Owensby, and avoid the trap of respectability politics. I am not sure it it was intentional on the director's part, but it was disturbing that only two victims of killer cops were featured in the film, and the main victim case focused on Owensby, a military man with a daughter. What about the other young African-Americans brutalized and killed by the police? The documentary tries to highlight this, but should have done a better job including the stories of the other prominent victims given its length.
The interviews with locals, protesters, footage of the riots, commentary on the anti-black curfew laws, and Marable really made this documentary work, to me at least. Unquestionably bleak, yet prophetic of the recent turmoil in Baltimore and Ferguson. I believe the documentary should be screened to all audiences sympathetic and engaged in the Black Lives Matter movement.
Rest in peace, Sathima. I will eternally regret not introducing myself when I saw you at your husband's concert in Cape Town. You are a master of emoting who adds depths of soul to any jazz ballad. Check out "The Man I Love," too.
One evening in late April or May, I finally met up with a South African middle-class black woman from the Johannesburg area. And by Johannesburg, I mean, most likely from the nearby suburbs or wealthy enclaves of the city. The young woman, who I met on the street one night in Observatory kissing her girlfriend, was highly educated, interested in Haiti, studied Spanish, and lived in Gabon for some time. I can't recall what exactly brought her family to Gabon, but I believe her mother was an educated, professional South African who moved there for work purposes. Anyway, we exchanged numbers (she mistook me and a Haitian-American/Canadian sister for her friends) after talking.
Over a month or two later, after saying we'll meet up one night and then not contacting each other, she invited me to join her and some of her close friends. Now, anyone who knows me can tell I am not a 'nightlife' person, but in the interest of study and getting to know her better, I agreed. Furthermore, because UCT is still majority white and the class/racial inequalities in South Africa basically means most of the black students are from middle-class or elite backgrounds, it was an opportunity to spend more time with the 'black diamonds' (middle-class and wealthy blacks, largely from Johannesburg, who study, work, and live in Cape Town) I rarely interacted with off campus. Indeed, it was an interesting experience, and they reminded me of my brother, Sizwe, except he came from a working-class or lower middle-class family that lived 3 hours away from Johannesburg. Sizwe's racial politics and musical interests were quite different, however, and reflected his Pan-Africanist sympathies.
Anywho, I decided to meet up with the aforementioned group of 'black diamonds' at a bar/club in Observatory. Can't recall the name, but I believe the establishment is known for rock music. After spending ten-twenty minutes looking for them, we met at the top floor of the establishment, which played dubstep, hip-hop, and electronica-styled music. Initially I regretted going, because I had to pay at least (it might have been even more) R30 just to get in. But out of boredom (I had no other plans for that evening) and curiosity, I decided to pay and saw her immediately. Her friends, unsurprisingly, were also 'black diamonds' from Johannesburg or its environs.
Moving on, the group consisted of the following: one tall, yellow-brown complected man who was a good dancer, a pretty but somewhat 'thick' woman, another good-looking woman who was stylishly dressed and more traditionally 'effeminate' than the previous beauty, and last but not least, the woman I met that night in Obz with her partner. They were okay dancers (but hey, neither am I), save the tall, wiry guy, who put them to shame. Each one was of means or from comfortable backgrounds, and they clearly enjoyed themselves quite a bit. They bought a lot of drinks, danced nearby each other while the one other male in our party put us all to shame. The music was not my cup of tea, consisting largely of dubstep and electronic garbage popular in the US and parts of Europe. The club's dancefloor was quite mixed, though, with lots of whites, Indians, some Coloureds, and blacks. Indeed, it was far more integrated than a lot of the places on Long Street I had spent some time at.
Besides dancing like fiends (the loud music made it very hard to communicate and I felt somewhat uncomfortable given my lack of appropriate 'dance or club attire'), we spent some time taking shots (I only participated once, and actually bought one of the 'diamonds' a drink, too) and relaxing. From what I can recall several months later, one was studying film and the rest were studying different areas. After about an hour of two, we left (our hands were stamped so we could get back in for free) and walked around the block for a while, mainly so that they could smoke that dagga (just playing, black South Africans seem to refer to it as weed for the most part, I think dagga is Afrikaans), which I did not take part in. While walking around, the woman who invited me to the group and I discussed her interests in Spanish, I asked a question about some slang I've heard lots of black South Africans use (ninga = nigga, which they confirmed for me), and I asked them about their homes and thoughts on Cape Town (unfortunately, I can only remember that one was from Centurion, and only because I briefly visited that area between Pretoria and Jo'burg).
Unlike some of the other middle-class black South Africans who were primary English speakers I talked to, they did not seem to feel discomfort in Cape Town's predominantly white upper-class spaces. Indeed, they all spoke highly of Cape Town and UCT, revealing nothing deeper in their thoughts on race relations, class inequality, or preferences of Cape Town or Jo'burg. I did realize that they, like too many young people from all over the world, idolize and closely mimic and follow US popular culture. Each of them talked to me about their love of the US, wanting to see New York and Los Angeles, how much they enjoyed that Kendrick Lamar song, etc. Indeed, like the mostly white students from the Southern suburbs of Cape Town I worked with in some of my courses at UCT, they also liked horrible American television shows (why the hell do people like Big Bang Theory or How I Met Your Mother. Europeans could also be obsessed with those horrible American sitcoms, Justin Bieber, and other inferior US/North American cultural exports). Oh well, at least they didn't tell me I looked like the Indian nerd in Big Bang Theory like the middle-class man in Soweto!
Indeed, from what I can tell, those of means and engaged in popular culture to some extent, all consumed US culture (or what they think of as "American"), which entailed idolozing and dreaming of going to New York and Los Angeles. Since I have been to these cities they idolize, I tried to tell them life in New York or LA ain't all it's cracked up to be, but perhaps that experience is better left to experiencing it for themselves. Surprising, they did not ask too much about the cities I was from and lived in, but hey, they ain't exciting compared to NYC.
After dancing around some more, discussing films with the lanky individual, and then becoming exhausted (dancing is tiring, I don't know how young people do it so much!), we left the joint and caught a cab. I suppose due to their earlier smoking, everyone wanted to eat fast food, so we took the cab to the McDonald's on Main Road in Obz. It's kind of a new status thing for the black middle classes in South Africa to be able to eat at some of these international fastfood chains. In the past, a place like KFC was frequented overwhelmingly by white South Africans, but 'black economic empowerment' and the growth of the black middle class has led to joints such as the aforementioned KFC to lose their prestige to whites. Anyway, everyone enjoys and eats at KFC and McDonald's in Cape Town. Besides being assumed to be a nerd by the stylish, thin woman, we ended up finally leaving McDonald's driveway after the employee messed up our order and everyone decided what belonged to who. It was somewhat childish and annoying, because I did not order anything yet had to endure yelling and somewhat excessive arguing.
Long story short, I was dropped off first because I stayed in Mowbray, closest to Observatory. They got off the cab later in neighborhoods closer to UCT. I felt bad about not paying anything for the cab, but was short on cash and only rode with them for less than a mile. Also, they probably are wealthier than me! One could afford a flight to get back to Johannesburg of all things the next day! Some of her spending habits struck me as frivolous, but who am I to judge? But I digress, they were an interesting group that struck me as somewhat apolitical and complacent. Yet I did not interact with them in a non-clubbing setting. I am certain that on campus they're studious or serious students (they seemed that way when we crossed paths by Jameson Plaza). In addition, each one, especially the woman who introduced me to the group, are more informed and critical than I noticed that evening. They were in a 'let's get drunk, high, and dance' mood that's common among all university students, particularly those of means.
In the end, my experience with 'black diamonds' such as the above were always cordial and somewhat interesting, yet also occasionally dull in terms of depth or meaning beyond the superficial when focused on rather mindless activities, such as drinking and dancing at overpriced clubs (yet still much cheaper than some of the pseudo-fancy places on Long Street). Unsurprisingly, most felt no reason to discuss their privileges or how the growth of the black elite and middle-classes is the primary factor in class inequality in post-apartheid South Africa. But then again, how often do elite or middle-class Americans discuss poverty in a serious, meaningful way?
Oh well, perhaps because so many of the black South Africans at UCT are from similarly privileged backgrounds, I can see many socializing largely in that circle of diamonds from Johannesburg and with whites. Indeed, that is what I witnessed with one 'diamond' who was dating the 'gay Nazi' neighbor of mine. So black diamonds don't even have to think about or confront some of these issues if their social circles (dictated according to lines drawn by class and, somewhat, race) and privileged membership in exclusive spaces such as UCT, the 'best university in Africa," never push them to confront the dire straits the overwhelming majority of the black populace of Cape Town and the Cape Flats face.
What do you think? Is this long, rambling post of any real significance on the topic of race relations and class in postapartheid Cape Town? And what of Coloureds, who constitute about 49% of Cape Town's population? I have no real understanding or exposure to Colored class/race dynamics that did not come out of a book. I would be fascinated to hear about how Coloureds at UCT conceived of themselves in Cape Town's social relations, the distribution of power, and race relations.
Education was the primary
battlefront for civil rights activism in New York City in the 1960s because of
the woefully inadequate state of black and Puerto-Rican majority schools. The
schools’ obvious inequality with white schools due to de facto segregation, and
the immediate negative impact of overcrowded, inferior schools on the lives of
minority children and their parents led to a movement across the city rooted in
parent activism, which had limited success.The focus on education as the most visible, successful civil
rights campaign in the city stems from its pressing, directly negative impact
on the lives of children and their parents over decades. Occurring at a time
when the city’s white population was declining due to white flight and
increasing numbers of blacks and Puerto Ricans, the battle for integrated
public schools faced insurmountable obstacles. Busing children from segregated neighborhood
schools to low-income black and Latino neighborhoods, for example, was not an
attractive proposal to white parents. Neither busing nor constructing schools
in intermediary areas between white and non-white neighborhoods was successful
or seriously pursued by the Board of Education. Finally, open enrollment did
not improve the overcrowded, impoverished educational facilities available for
black and Puerto Rican children in ghettoes, such as Bedford-Stuyvesant and
Harlem. Education reform could not solve the fundamental problems of racial and
economic oppression, which encompassed housing, unemployment, discriminatory
policies, and an unfair economic system.
Racial
minorities in New York City during the beginning of white flight in the 1950s
quickly engaged themselves in the struggle to integrate public schools.Blacks
in New York City, due to housing discrimination, poverty, and white flight,
found themselves forced into living in already-existing slums in Harlem, or the
neighborhoods such as Bedford-Stuyvesant and Brownsville in Brooklyn, which
were rapidly losing their white population during the black influx.[1]
The worst schools in New York unsurprisingly served these black and Puerto
Rican neighborhoods such as Harlem, or areas in transition that would become
predominantly black, such as Bedford-Stuyvesant and Brownsville in the 1950s
and 1960s. Naturally, resistance to the unequal school system where black and
Puerto Rican children were largely excluded from white schools in white neighborhoods
and warehoused in overcrowded schools with inferior teachers, developed among
parents, especially women active in the parent-teacher organizations.[2]
However, both national and local civil rights organizations also spearheaded
the movement, with the Brooklyn chapter of the NAACP, at the forefront in the
late 1950s.[3]
Under
the auspices of the Brown decision of 1954, supporters of school desegregation
in the North used the rationale in that case to establish a legal precedent for
desegregation. The Brown decision called for an end to segregated schools using
the psychological argument of black inferiority instilled in the psyche of
black children and the obvious unequal distribution of resources in separate
and supposedly equal schools.[4]
New York judge Justine Polier’s decision in favor of a group of Harlem parents
boycotting the inferior, segregated Harlem school upheld the Brown decision in
1958, ruling in favor of the parents in the case, In the Matter of Charlene Skipwith.[5]
The ramifications of the case were immense, since it defended the rights of
parent activists to challenge the educational bureaucracy of New York City, a
radical step in giving legal legitimacy to the demands of parents. Moreover,
this early instance of a boycott against segregated, inferior Harlem schools,
beginning with formal complaints issued to the Board in 1957, also established
a precedent for city-wide school boycotts in 1964 and 1965, which drew hundreds
of thousands of students out of school.[6]
As mentioned previously, the parents involved in this early boycott were women,
the “Harlem Nine,” who kept their children out of junior high schools, JHS 136
and 139.[7]
Soon
groups such as the Brooklyn NAACP chapter, under the presidency of Milton A.
Galamison in Bedford-Stuyvesant, demanded the construction of new schools in
nearly all-black neighborhoods, in addition to pushing for open enrollment at
white schools.[8]
As pastor of Siloam Presbyterian Church, one of the largest congregations in
the predominantly black neighborhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Galamison had the
connections and clout within the community to facilitate the grassroots
organizers and parents, especially since the congregation during this period
numbered in the thousands.[9]
Working with other New York branches of
the NAACP, as chair of the Education Committee of the New York branch, as well
as leftist white allies, such as Annie Stein, the daughter of Russian Jewish
immigrants with a past as a member of the Communist Party, Galamison helped establish
the Parents’ Workshop, which laid the foundation for subsequent waves of the
desegregation struggle.[10]
Ella
Baker’s role, however, preceded that of Galamison, since her involvement had
begun as president of the New York City NAACP branch in 1952, leading to the
city branch becoming involved in fighting for education improvements for black
and Puerto Ricans. Baker also served as a member of the Intergroup Committee
chaired by Kenneth Clark, the psychologist whose work was cited in Brown that demonstrated segregation’s
negative effects on black youth.[11]
Moreover, the Parents’ Workshop, a group of mostly women who became involved in
school desegregation from their participation in PTAs, always served as the
vast majority of participants.[12]
Using momentum from Brown, the national civil rights movement in the
South, and, to a limited degree, pro-labor and employment demonstrations in
support of procuring black employment, the NAACP and other civil rights groups
did address issues of poverty and class. For example, the Brooklyn NAACP
chapter organized protests against police brutality in addition to voter
registration drives, clearly connecting the movement in New York with the
police violence of segregationists in the South.[13]
Unfortunately,
the national leadership of the NAACP and other mainstream civil rights organizations
remained reluctant to engage in the school desegregation effort in New York with
the same amount of effort and will as local activists. Occurring during the
height of McCarthyism, many NAACP chapters also purged Communists from the
group in order to avoid the damning accusation of anti-Americanism.[14]
This weakened the organization’s ties to leftist and sympathetic white allies,
including the left-leaning Teachers Union, which supported the integrationist
struggle before being replaced by the Union of Federated Teachers. Thus, the
movement within New York City suffered from severe differences of opinion of
activists on the ground, and the national leadership, as represented by Roy
Wilkins. Galamison and Wilkins clashed over the methodology of struggle, and
Galamison, whose conception of liberation theology was anti-capitalist, saw no
problem in cooperating with leftist whites.[15]
Indeed, progressive whites, often secular Jews like Annie Stein, were more
cooperative and supportive, as were sympathetic unions to integrate schools,
such as Junior High School 258 in 1955. This particular instance, a
Bedford-Stuyvesant school that opened with a 98% African American student body
aroused white and black fury. The Board deliberately built a school in an area
where it was inevitably to be a black school instead of building it according
to a pro-integration zoning pattern, at the intersection of black and white
neighborhoods in Brooklyn.[16]
Of
course, one cannot overlook the successes of the New York civil rights movement
in dismantling former barriers to integration. As Kenneth Clark, the prominent
black psychologist whose study was cited in favor of school desegregation in Brown
v. Board, noted, the schools black children attended were the most
overcrowded and poorly resourced.[17]
He also claimed that the high school zones had been gerrymandered purposely to
exclude large numbers of black students from attending the best academic high
schools, which would be more difficult to maintain in the present since public
schools provide passes.[18]
However, residential housing segregation persists, as does the income gap,
further perpetuating black and Latino under-performance. Many whites, as well
as the Board of Education in the 1950s and 1960s, clung to the notion of the
neighborhood school. Why would whites want to send their children to schools in
high-crime, impoverished communities? Even Stokely Carmichael agreed that one
could not realistically expect whites to want to send their children to schools
in 1960s Harlem![19]
The
neighborhood concept of sending one’s children to a school within the
neighborhood, usually lacking racial diversity, appealed to parents for the
simple reason of keeping their children nearby rather than busing them to
distant and sometimes dangerous areas.[20]
White racism and assumptions of inferiority also limited white receptiveness to
black and Puerto Rican children in white schools. White parents protested,
launched boycotts, and treated black students who did transfer to white schools
poorly, similar to the situation black students integrating schools in the
South experienced. Black students allowed to enroll at white schools in
Ridgewood, Queens, in 1959 for example, endured large protests by white parents
outside of the school, in addition to often hostile school environments where
black students were kept in separate classes in future cases.[21]
Needless to say, by 1964, after years of open enrollment and promises by the
Board to build new schools exclusively on the fringe areas of white and
minority communities, the number of segregated schools increased since 1960,
especially since the Board continued to build new schools in black and Latino
areas where they were inevitably black and Latino only.[22]
Thus,
the resistance of white parents, and their influence over the Board, severely
limited the chances for successful education reform. Working-class and
middle-class white groups that stayed in New York often chose to send their
children to private schools. The inability to find common ground between
lower-class whites and blacks on the issue of education perpetuated racial
tension without improving educational facilities for black and Puerto Ricans. Blacks and the burgeoning Puerto Rican population at
the time continued to face employment discrimination, overpriced housing or
slum conditions, and racial injustice everywhere. Indeed, the Board adopted
racist assumptions to blame black academic under-performance on blacks and
Puerto Ricans, claiming in a letter to Galamison racist beliefs and assumptions
such as: indifference of parents, use of children as pawns in contests with the
welfare system, absence of an academic tradition and interest in minority
families, and emotional rejection and neglect by mothers of unwanted children.[23]
These generalizations and stereotypes of black parents, and black women in
particular, evince the emergence of the welfare dependency and the welfare queen
stereotype of black women as poor mothers trying to cheat the system.
Regardless of the visibility and participation of thousands of black parents,
mostly women, their value of education and promoting improved education
remained questioned, due to racist underlying assumptions that influenced white
perceptions of racial minorities. Even when an estimated 464, 361 students,
about 45% of total enrollment, did not attend classes to participate in the
February 3, 1964 boycott for the Board to establish a timetable for real school
desegregation, racist assumptions of black cultural inferiority continued to
shape white perceptions of blacks as solely responsible for black
under-performance.[24]
Still,
one can easily understand why civil rights leaders and parents focused on
education as a leading campaign in New York City. Galamison, the public profile
of the school integration movement, utilized his status as a Presbyterian
pastor and progressive Christian values to buttress his argument for improving
educational facilities for all children. Indeed, one quotation from his
correspondence with the Board of Education states, “I repeat this Board of
Education has a moral and legal obligation to equalize the schools of this City
by September 1959 and to find the necessary funds for the job.”[25]
Like southern civil rights leaders, such as Martin Luther King, Jr., Galamison
used morally righteous rhetoric for integrated schools. Furthermore, to deprive
white children of an integrated school environment damaged whites as well as
blacks, since white children matured in a world where racial segregation and
white supremacy appeared morally legitimate.[26]
Moreover, working-class and poor women activists engaged in the struggle
through their parent organizations and the Parents' Workshop for Equality,
established in 1960, saw education as a visible, direct example of racial
discrimination that negatively impacted their children. The effects of sending
their children off to overcrowded schools with poor facilities, sometimes leading
to school days below the standard amount of time white students experienced,
clearly revealed the negative impact of the status quo in education.[27]
In
addition, education likely appeared as a more winnable campaign for the parents
of black and Puerto-Rican children, especially more pertinent to parents of
students attending ghetto schools. Demands for open enrollment and the
construction of schools in the intermediary regions between minority and white
neighborhoods seemed like a relatively easier goal than overhauling the current
system, redistributing wealth and resources, eradicating capitalism, or miraculously
curing the white populace of its racism. However, as Bayard Rustin, a New
York-based civil rights organizer on the national level, realized after the
first school boycott on February 4, 1964, social and economic conditions were
more pressing as blacks faced an increasing problem with unemployment and a
growing urban underclass that undermined public school education.[28]
Public schools, as a result of increasingly ghettoized communities with fewer
resources, did not significantly improve after some of the demands of
integrationists were met. Though parents and activists possessed a reasonable
rationale for demanding integration, especially since white schools had the
better facilities, experienced teachers, and therefore better tools for
academic success, black and Latino students still could not either enter these
schools, or if they did succeed in getting transfers, often left due to white
resistance and maltreatment.[29]
In fact, white resistance in New York took a similar form to white resistance
in the South, via protests to the Board of Education, white flight to suburbs,
increasing enrollment of white children to private schools, racist language used
at demonstrations at integrated schools, and even the storming of a Queens
school to force two transferred students out![30]
The
collapse of the fragile coalition of civil rights organizations that
orchestrated the February 3, 1964 school boycott after the Board of Education failed
to keep its promises for school integration also revealed the enormous disunity
and disagreement within the pro-integrationist camp.[31]
The expected opposition to the planned second boycott on March 16 of white groups
also included the national chapters of the NAACP and CORE, which had previously
supported the first boycott that Bayard Rustin had organized.[32]
Thirteen chapters of the NAACP in New York withdrew from the City-Wide
Committee for Integrated Schools, the coalition built from the Parents’
Workshop and Harlem Parents Committee, as well as the NAPRR, a Puerto-Rican
civil rights group, disagreeing with Galamison’s authoritarian, unilateral
decision making and the tactics.[33]
Some of those who disagreed with Galamison, especially whites and some black
nationalists, argued that the focus should be on improving existing black
schools instead of mass transfers of children.[34]
Whites, including the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, the Jewish-led
UFT, and New York liberals were either too attached to the neighborhood school
concept and racist beliefs to support full, immediate integration.[35]
The
UFT, however, initially offered limited support to the first boycott, but
refused to recognize the shortcomings of teachers. Their plan for city-wide
integration, released prior to the first boycott in February, called for
reductions in class size in difficult schools, additional counselors, remedial
psychological services, supervisors and teachers. This rightly seemed too little,
too late for black parents who had been demanding improved educational
facilities since the late 1950s.[36]
The UFT did not acknowledge that minority children often did not receive a full
day of instruction, had the least experienced teachers or that 70% of math
teachers in black and Puerto Rican schools were unlicensed, which seemed to
blame disadvantaged children for their own predicament without acknowledging
the role of teachers in ensuring a proper school environment.[37]
Black
organizations, on the other hand, such as national leadership of CORE and the
NAACP, were less committed to direct action-based, mass movements, preferring
negotiation, as mentioned previously. Black nationalist leader Malcolm X,
however, supported Galamison’s plan for a second boycott, which also received
support from Adam Clayton Powell, the powerful Harlem Congressman.[38]
X respected Galamison, inviting him to speak at the Audubon on April 5, 1964,
and again on the day he would be assassinated in February 1965.[39]
Perhaps Galamison won Malcolm’s favor, as well as that of some other black
nationalists because the demands for the second boycott embraced more
nationalistic aims, such as textbooks with black history, the appointment of a
Puerto Rican to the Board, additional black principals and teachers, besides
the older demands for a comprehensive city-wide plan for desegregation, and the
cessation of school construction in segregated neighborhoods.[40]
The
gradual infiltration of black nationalist ideology and the ascent of Black
Power, already showing signs of its presence in some of the demands of the
March 16 boycott, which withdrew an estimated 267, 459 children from schools, a
surprisingly large number since many national civil rights groups, local black
and Puerto Rican groups opposed it.[41]
As the mid-1960s passed, SNCC and CORE were expelling whites, and placing
blacks at the leadership of a struggle for self-determination rose in
ideological prominence.[42]
Accepting that the power to fully integrate New York City public schools was
somewhat beyond the power of the Board of Education, the idea of improving
majority-minority schools via community control developed as a logical outcome
of black self-determination. Supporters of the shift to community control
rather than integration also noticed that many of their white allies were more
supportive of integration in the South rather than the North; Jewish allies
especially, though disproportionately more supportive of civil rights for
blacks than other whites, saw the pace of integration in New York as proceeding
too rapidly.[43]
Galamison,
who after the fallout from the second boycott, and along with the rise of Black
Power, was no longer the leader of an integrationist movement after the
dissolution of the coalition, publicly supported community control despite his
distaste for what he initially perceived as a black separatist movement.[44]
Even Galamison had been forced to acknowledge that Black power, defined as
empowerment of blacks to control institutions within black communities appeared
to be the most rational course of action, since years of pressuring the Board
of Education to integrate schools through the system and through boycotts failed,
and white control of institutions in black neighborhoods resembled colonialism,
thereby fostering black consciousness and nationalist sentiments. Community
control advocates like Robert “Sonny” Carson appealed to this kind of colonial
relationship to court the favor of blacks during school demonstrations in 1967.[45]
Moreover,
the chances for an alliance between teachers and the community control
advocates became untenable in the late 1960s because of conservative trade
unionism that focused on improving wages and working conditions, leading to
Galamison and other activists painting teachers as part of the system that
oppressed black children.[49]
Forced into a hostile environment with the mostly white and Jewish-led
teacher’s union immobilized the community control advocates in the late 1960s,
culminating in the 1968 Ocean Hill-Brownsville UFT strike.[50]
The immediate cause of the strike was the involuntary transfer of 10 teachers
by the Ocean Hill-Brownsville community board, led by Rhody McCoy. From their
point of view, transferring those white teachers unsympathetic to community
control of education was necessary to protect the principle of community
control. The UFT, on the other hand, saw this step by the Ocean
Hill-Brownsville board as abrogating the integrity of the contract and civil
service procedures established under the Board of Education with the union.
This led to the community control advocates pushing to keep the public schools
open during the UFT’s citywide strike, which began in May 1968. Ethnic tensions
between Jews and African-Americans in New York flared as some community control
supporters used anti-Semitic rhetoric to attack the UFT while the UFT responded
by exaggerating the extent of anti-Semitism in the press to delegitimize the
community control movement.[51]
In truth, even UFT members loyal to the union hinted that the degree of
anti-Semitism claimed by UFT leadership to have existed was exaggerated to
discredit the community control movement.[52]
The UFT likely planted anti-Semitic notices in the mailboxes of Jewish members
to further discredit the movement, showing the depths to which the union would
go to portray the community control movement as anti-Semitic.[53]
Their
strike in September 1968, however, succeeded when a special trial found that
McCoy and the governing board had failed to provide evidence against the
involuntarily transferred teachers, thereby framing the issue as a
labor-management dispute.[54]
The governing board was eventually suspended on September 14 after failing to
reinstate the dismissed teachers, revealing the weaknesses of the community
control movement to positively change inner-city schools.[55]
The teachers’ union won public favor against what they framed as extremists
attempting to take over other schools in New York, which succeeded in swaying
the public perception of the community control movement as anti-Semitic.
Interestingly,
black and Puerto Rican support for community control was mixed, with some
supporting the UFT in the struggle, as shown by the newspaper, El Tiempo. Even within Ocean
Hill-Brownsville, the black neighborhood in Brooklyn that instigated the
confrontation between the community control movement and the UFT, 24% of
parents were unhappy with the governing board, nearly 47% had a negative view
of the governing board and only 2% supported allowing black militants or local politicians
to have the greatest say in running the district’s schools.[56]
Thus, even within black and Puerto Rican New York, the black nationalists
demanding community control lacked complete support, despite the rise of Black
Power politics.
The
community control movement, however, survived as decentralization was further
implemented in 1969, but called for borough-wide elections and limited the
number of community school districts to 33 with no fewer than 20,000 elementary
and junior high school students.[57]
Of course, conditions scarcely improved under community control, where corrupt
local officials on the school boards abused their control of school budgets.
Community control was initially designed to ensure local control over key
policy decisions in personnel, budget, curriculum, and public policy, but the
possibility for mismanagement, corruption, and the absence of participatory
ways for parents to influence local school matters remained present.[58]
Indeed, by 1976, even Kenneth Clark, one of the earliest proponents of
decentralization, openly admitted that decentralization “had failed to improve
education and so far had resulted primarily in power grabs and struggles over
jobs and control of finances.”[59]
A Puerto Rican example, Luis Fuentes in District 1 is one of many examples of
community control misusing school funds and appointing unqualified individuals
in schools under community control during the 1970s.Fuentes
used the community control system to essentially appropriate funds for friends
instead of using his position to improve the district’s mostly Puerto Rican
student body on the Lower East Side. [60]
Even as early as 1970, Clark, as a member of the State Board of Regents, noted
that fiscal irregularities already discernible existed on a wider basis.[61]
Clearly,
decentralization did not result in significant improvement in the education of
poor black and Puerto Rican New York. Indeed, in some cases, tensions with
teachers or corruption within contributed to a further decline. Unemployment,
massive white flight, dreadful crime, and government mismanagement and
corruption flourished, regardless of who ran the schools in black and Puerto
Rican New York. The black nationalist outlook that guided the community control
movement was also misinformed, thinking that adopting the ethnic politics of
other groups or controlling institutions within already impoverished
communities would somehow allow them to transcend the broader system of unequal
access to the distribution of resources, and broader manifestations of social
inequality was rather naïve. Likewise, education reform without a total reform
of society will likely result in superficial change that ignores the systemic
causes of urban poverty and racism that will continue to exist while
policymakers argue over the ramifications of their proposed school reform.
One
must accept the movement’s successes, however, which include integrated public
schools today, though they are overwhelmingly black and Hispanic overall at 32%
and 40.3% of total enrollment respectively.[62]
Nevertheless, blacks and Hispanic students still struggle in largely
under-performing high schools, with few making it to the highly ranked
specialized public high schools of Stuyvesant or Bronx Science due to entrance
exams. The battle for the integration of New York City public schools succeeded
to a certain extent in integrating the public school system, yet the issue of
poverty and integration of the specialized high schools that are much better
than the majority of New York’s public high schools persists. Nevertheless, the
focus on school desegregation, necessitated by clearly inferior schools for
racial minorities and parent activism to improve the prospects for their
children, did have limited success.
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[1] .Dan W. Dodson, “Public Education in New York City in the Decade
Ahead,” Journal of Educational Sociology 34, no. 6 (Feb.
1961): 275.
[2] Clarence
Taylor, Knocking at Our Own Door: Milton A. Galamison and the Struggle
to Integrate New York City Schools (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1997), 59.
[4] Jennifer
de Forest, “The 1958 Harlem School Boycott: Parental Activism and the Struggle
For Educational Equity in New York City,” The Urban Review 40,
no. 1 (2008): 22.
[11] Barbara
Ransby, Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic
Vision (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003),
148-150.
[16] Adina
Back, “Blacks, Jews, and the Struggle to Integrate Brooklyn's Junior High
School 258: A Cold War Story,” Journal of American Ethnic History 20,
no. 2 (Winter, 2001): 39.
[48]Ritterband, Paul. Ethnic power
and the public schools: the New York City school strike of 1968. Sociology of Education, Volume 40, No.
2.(1974): 252.
