Brown

Almost half of children in the US are minorities, according to the Census. I'm looking forward very much to the day when that 50-percent mark is passed in the overall population, and we can put to rest the notion that this is a country that somehow ought to be owned by white people or culture. That's going to be far from automatic, though, since even in today's multi-ethnic child population, segregation keeps most people ignorant. What's it going to be like 10 years from now, with white children only the plurality, but isolated almost completely in suburban school systems in which they are members of an apparent super-majority? What kinds of lessons about diversity, inclusiveness and humility will they be able to learn there?

Sometimes I think we don't get it when we blame Brown v. Board of Education for our suburbanized segregation. The problem with Brown was not that it lead to forced integration and busing that drove scared white folks out of the cities; it was that it all didn't didn't happen regionally, that enforcement fell too short to make a real change.