We don’t need this issue coming up in the general election if Harris is our nominee.

Is the Harris campaign strategy to just take both sides on every issue?

Times today are different. Housing segregation is largely economic. I recently visited a relative at a rehab hospital. Next door was a highend early childhood school. The kids were outside, so I quickly glanced over the large group of kids. Several things I noticed. First the student/teacher ratio was not more than maybe 10:1. Second, a lot of the kids were White, a pretty good number of Asian kids (Vietnamese, Chinese, Indian) and several Black kids. Now based upon what the school looked like, I figured that the parents were shelling out good money per week. A very large number of the doctors in my area are Asian, there are a few White ones and a few Black doctors. Most of the business people are Whitr, in particular the oldline family businesses.

That school just reinforced what I see. In working class neighborhoods, they are diversely integrated. As the income level goes up, the racial diversity goes down. It is not purposeful, people just buy houses that they can afford, the nicer neighborhoods are largely populated by high wage earners, if creative means are not used, the schools will mirror the neighborhoods. Fortunately after fighting integration, the powers that be in my county have used school building to maintain well integrated schools as the population increased and income disparities became greater. So Harris makes a good point, and her position is NOTHING like what Biden took in the seventies when resistance to integration was due purely to racial animus.

Forced integration didn't solve educational inequities, it only pissed off working and middle class whites who had traditionally voted for Democrats. "Busing" was/is a political minefield. Harris figured that out pretty quickly.

But this wasn't about opposition to integration but just that white parents didn't want their kids bused too far away from their neighborhood schools, right?

....by residents of the city, regardless of their race.

When are we going to admit that busing was an abject failure and let it go? This became a non-issue in the mid-80s, but for some reason some want to inject this into our 2020 primaries. Sad.

poor under served white schools and racism. It was almost if it was planned to fail.


https://chalkbeat.org/posts/us/2019/07/01/busing-for-school-integration-succeed-work-research/

“School integration didn’t fail,” Berkeley economist Rucker Johnson, who has conducted some of the most far-reaching research on school integration, recently argued. “The only failure is that we stopped pursuing it and allowed the reign of segregation to return.”

you couldn't get elected dog catcher if you ran on it.

Dismissing academics? That's not a good fit for a liberal.

It worked where it worked it didn't where it didn't Segregation lessened while it was in place, it increased when it was ended.

You final statement is the working proposition. School busing was ended because of fear. Or it was ended because synical politicians got on board with the anti-busing movement.

failed policy...that will get good Democrats tossed out of office and reelect Trump... academics don't always have an understanding of the conditions outside of their specialty... I wouldn't take election advice from them...they live in an ivory tower.

I didn't say that you are not a liberal, is that not true?

You dismissed a man who (according to the article) has studied the subject for many years. You did so by using an insult to academics.

That is a statement of fact is it not?

You repeat that insult in this post.

Here you say " academics don't always have an understanding of the conditions outside of their specialty.", and yet busing is this man's subject.
So how can your quoted statement be anything but a diversion?

Lets go back to the meat of my post.
Here's my hypothesis, busing was ended by politicians because they feared that it would keep them from being elected. Some politicians cynically came out against busing because they had their finger to the wind.

Do you agree that this is a working hypothesis?

That's what I got from your post. That is what I think you believe.

districts are going to be forced to bus across district lines. The busing usual did more to create the racial divide than anything else and forced busing supporters still will not admit it. Harris of all people tried to make political hitjob on Biden and its backfiring

Busing didn't create white flight. It was just one of the excuses.

the rise of white suburbia accelerated in the 1960s and 1970s. Thats what we saw in florida and in Illinois

and still well underway

Charlotte and Boston were the pilot projects.

Funny how us southerners didn’t respond in that way. However, no one, black or white, liked the stupid idea of ripping kids out of their neighborhood schools.

It was one of the last school systems to implement a desegregation plan that included busing. It took so long because the city was so intractable in it's opposition to desegregation that it took years of litigation and a brave, heroic judge to get them to develop a desegregation plan. And instead of working with city residents, black and white, to make desegregation work for everyone, the city leaders ginned up the white residents, turned them against the black residents and created the nucking fightmare we now remember.

One of the main reasons the Northern desegregation efforts were so difficult was the intractability of the residential segregation created and maintained by government policy in collaboration with white residents, realtors, businesses, school boards, etc.

Given that, how do you think desegregation could have been implemented in those cities without children being being reassigned to different schools?

And, FYI - the opposition to busing wasn't solely based on the concern about their children being "ripped out of their neighborhood schools." Many of the people making the most noise didn't have children who would have had to change schools. They objected to black students coming into their neighborhoods and attending THEIR "neighborhood school"with their children.

attempted to bomb the buses...this happened in Boston.

already an abysmal failure...so what was the point?

to address race was outlawed by SCOTUS so it is a moot point...surprised Harris didn't seem to know that.
The policy was abandoned in 1988 from what I can tell.

Anymore then the fact that some people bomb abortion clinics isn't an effective argument against abortion.

Also busting for desegregation was not ruled illegal in 2007 or at any other time and wasn't abandoned in 1988. It's still a legal tool for desegregation and, in fact, is still being used for desegregation in some areas of the country.

Be gone with you now.

I was so relieved when it abolished racism in the United States.

Charlotte schools are more segregated than ever.

Charlotte schools were segregated long before busing ever came into to picture. And after Brown, white Charlotte residents dug in their heels and refused to comply with the law. They were taken to court and it STILL took them years after that to come up with an effective desegregation plan. And when it came time to implement it, I get same people who've been pulling out all the stops to suppress the black vote and oppress the LGBTQ community also did everything within their power to make sure desegregation didn't occur.

The failure of desegregation in Charlotte wasn't the fault of busing. Busing just wasn't enough to overcome the pervasive, intractable and insidious racism and ingrained segregation that existed in North Carolina for decades.

Be gone with you now.

good for her.

I wonder if she finds her own words hurtful too?

When Biden worked with segregationist to oppose integration, the resistance had pure racial animus at it's core.

Today segregation is driven more by incomes and a desire of people to live around houses that look and are maintained like theirs. A lot of the people are perfectly ok with their kids going to integrated schools and having friends of other races. Completely different time. The solution today involves school construction and magnet schools more than busing.

For the same reasons. I guess he really was ahead of his time!

The segregationists wanted NO integration anywhere is society. They wanted permenent seperation of the races. I don't see how a person that wanted what Harris is calling for could work with someone that called for none of that.

But after Thursday I don’t know what she’s serious about frankly .

That is the correct path. For example in my county where income determines where people live and where million dollar plus homes can be a mile from ones that cost maybe $60,000, building and staffing quality schools maintains the integration that we have.

While my county is big, Whites outnumber Blacks by 6.6 to 1, so it is impossible for a group of Blacks in a neighborhood to not have a neighborhood that is more White nearby. So school building like my county has been doing for decades now produced well integrated schools.

But in places where people chose homes purely out of racial concerns and not economic ones, busing may be needed because it is unlikely that local officials will try to rectify the problem by building new schools that force integration due to how they are placed, or buikding magnet schools that attract kids with similar interests.

Where segregation was caused by systematic racism, he did not oppose busing, nor where it was chosen voluntarily by a district, as it was in Berkeley, where Kamala was bused to a school in the hills. But where it wasn't court-ordered and wasn't initiated locally he thought there were much better solutions to achieving educational equality than assigning students to distant schools on the basis of their race.

The bill sought to stop ALL Court ordered desegregation efforts, it did not make distinctions as you claim.

TY!

defeated the bill.

And then they don’t read them anyway - because they’re really not interested in facts and information. Just trying to distract and muddy the waters.

and so too, thankfully, is it's defeat.

I would be ok with him saying that he was wrong then and if he could redo that time, he would never choose to do what he did.

useful, she abandoned the policy.

Joe worked with segregationists, he Ço-wrote a bill with those segregationists that stopped ALL Court mandated busing to reverse the actions of segregationists. Paint it how you want, that was the reality.

Harris is proposing a two pronged approach. Work with counties like mine that has actively chosen to keep it's schools integrated, even in the face of housing patterns as the county grew, or bring the hammer of mandated process down on counties and districts that have either ignored segregation of schools or are actively working to keep schools segregated.

So much easier to just keep claiming "forced busing" destroyed desegregation.

did he try to keep innocent people in jail?

Working with someone because you have to is different from actively doing a regressive bill WITH them. That has nothing to do with who controls Comittees.

In my county that certainly is the case. Pretty much all over the county we have homes that can cost 40 times the value of homes a mile down the road. Unless the rich people send their kids to private schools (we don't have many of those at all), then the kids go to the same schools as kids from the poorer homes. Real estate agents in my county care more about money, if a Black person has the money to move into an estate, the agents are going to sell the person the property.

I understand that the situation in my county does not exist everywhere, that is why Harris' modernistic, nuanced proposals for solving integration problems makes sense. In some areas, busing may be needed because of redlining or official malnevolence toward Blacks. But in counties like mine, simple school construction and building magnet schools to attract parents to send their kids there works perfectly fine, those solutions would be locally managed along federal guidelines.

I live in a community like that and I like it. It is one of the most places I’ve felt comfortable since my teens. And that was long ago.

It is red, was much redder in the 70s, but starting in 1970, county administrators have worked to keep schools well integrated.

There is an old story about my city and county. Long ago the Klan tried to set up in the county but were ran out by White citizens that took them on. As a child I saw confederate flag decals on some vehicles, but most cars simply had regular tags and nothing else, now every new moon I will see and old worn out confederate decals, normally on a vehicle that looks like shit.

I was surprised how close Hillary was to Trump in votes in my county, even though Trump himself made a stop here and Hillary did not send anyone in. The republicanism here has always been the chamber of commerce, gathering lodge type of republicanism.

and trashed for it non-stop for the last five days

Someone deserves an apology, but I know it won’t happen, just as I know this story will not get wide circulation

Biden's proposal would have defunded all busing via HEW grants.

And where it wasn’t desegregation was still mandatory. it didn’t make it into law on any case.

- to end all busing. Look, what is done is done. I didn't agree with that attack. The sooner we leave behind busing as an issue, in it's entirety, the better.

Not to end busing and not end desegregation and not to end Kamala’s program in Berkeley.

but there is no point in arguing about it. Trump hasn't woken up yet to what a wedge issue this could be for him. Democrats should STFU and Harris shouldn't mention it again if possible.

No, going nuclear on Biden was not a good idea. But she did and now she has to face the consequences.

Unless we don’t stop talking about immediately. . .

Frame it as ancient history with Kamala distancing herself at an appropriate time and offering a qualified apology to Biden if that's what TPTB deem necessary.

Biden still leads in every poll so it’s still a race. And that means this isn’t over when Harris starts feeling the heat. Just tactics, you understand, nothing personal.

I trust she will do the right thing when the time comes. As you know, busing is electoral dynamite for those old enough to remember it. I would prefer everyone treats it as such, including 'voluntary busing'. I think your commentary here is right. It will come back to bite her. I'm not suggesting this board should lock down the topic, but the Party should bury it ASAP.

There is no upside to him motivating Blacks to vote like in 2008 and 2012, if Blacks do that, the MAGATS can't win. My guess if he has smart advisors, they stay away from this issue. Now, if we are clueless enough to cry out for reprerations without a clear path and justifications, Trump will use that to peal off Whites that would vote with democrats sans that issue.

The ONLY places where the federal courts mandated busing were the cases where there was a pattern of local officials working to maintain segregation. Biden worked with segregationists to prevent the federal courts from rectifying wrongs. What Harris is proposing in a vastly different concept.

But you know what? Harris just adopted Joe's position circa 1975 so that pretty much clears up any problem she might have found in it. It's ironic. The silver lining is that by playing the pit bull she may well have won herself a veep invitation. If I were her, I'd take it.

What Kamala briefly supported was the latter. Now, like Joe, she has rejected it. Neither ever rejected the former (court-ordered). Hope that helps!

The court ordered the schools to desegregate and part of those orders was for them to work with HEW to develop desegregation plans. None of this was tied to school funding - except to the extent that Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibited the use of federal funds in a discriminatory manner and, therefore continued refusal to discriminate could result in the loss of federal funding. But that's an altogether separate issue, unrelated to busing.

The court orders and federal mandates were the same. The school desegregation plans ordered by the courts came about as a result of the lawsuits brought by black parents after the schools refused to desegregate voluntarily. The court orders were the federal mandate that HEW implemented.

You should read Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenberg County if you'd like a very good, in-depth description of how these court orders and plan development worked and HEW's role therein.

So, whatever.

The whole thing was in the Courts. The Department of Education was not involved other than getting money to once recalcitrant counties like mine to build new schools to support their delayed integration efforts.

The segregationists opposed integration PERIOD!

It does not absolve Biden that the bill failed.

Harris is talking about a completely different problem today. You have high income couples that chose to live in a location because the homes are nice. They likely went to school with people of other races and don't oppose integration of all society. It is not like those people are going to riot and raise hell if the Feds work with local officials to build new and magnet schools to increase integration.

Realized it was a mistake. Self-serving.

this tour de force to exceed time limits, and MSM which has denied the semblance of fair coverage.

When Biden worked with segregationist, the opposition had at it's base pure racial animus. Today housing prices and the ability to afford them is driving residential segregation, so the solutions that are applied must be different, that is what Harris is pointing out.

and she should have waited before releasing her t-shirts too.

the lead in "backtracking", I wonder who would be at the top.

.....oh, wait.

Maybe that suggestion might apply to others also

I believe one of the candidates also indicated they misheard the question about private insurers also during the debate

deafness as an age-related only condition.

Kamala Harris’s Call for a Return to Busing Is Bold and Politically Risky


When Kamala Harris upbraided Joe Biden in last week’s Democratic presidential debate for his history of anti-busing activism back in the day, it electrified audiences and made her the clear winner of the evening. The very direct confrontation worked in part because Harris was able to testify to her own experience as a beneficiary of busing as a child, and in part because Biden floundered in answering, lapsing back into states’-rights jargon about the evils of federally mandated busing.

But Harris is now in danger of sounding anachronistic herself by calling for a renewed federal commitment to school desegregation along with the use of busing as a tool to achieve it:

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) is standing by her support for busing as an effective tool the federal government should use to help desegregate schools.

The 2020 presidential candidate doubled down on her busing comments Sunday in San Francisco after participating in the city’s Pride Parade, according to Bloomberg.

“I support busing,” she told reporters outside city hall. “Listen, the schools of America are as segregated, if not more segregated today than when I was in elementary school. And we need to put every effort, including busing, into play to desegregate the schools.”




[link:http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/07/kamala-harriss-call-to-bring-back-busing-is-bold-and-risky.html|