Wednesday, May 2, 2007

1950's

Today, the thought of segragated schools by race seem strange, werid and unethical to most people, although in the 1950's race was a huge factor in determining where you went to school and what type of education you got. When thinking about it, it seems like de-segragation was such a obvious solution; a neccessary step to create an equal America. But it was not, it was very difficult for many people and for a few, still is. If you think about it, the simple thought of "i'm better than you" grew and grew until it became accepted belief and created a giant uphill batle for African Americans to fight.
Black Americans have come a long way since the days of segragation and slavery, but have they gone far enough? As much as we like to think we, Americans, veiw everyone as equals, racism and a small amount of segragation still exsist. Looking around we seem Kamehameha, admit only Hawaiian students into their schools. This IS a form of segragation because by doing this, we promote them to higher status, that they are better than other people. The grows and grows and dislike toward other races becomes more and more evident. It may seem like a small isolated problem, but is definatly a viable example of segragation and the impacts it has. On the other hand, student who arn't Hawaiian and cannot afforod to attend private schools, feel less wanted and are stuck with junk public school as a last resort. The issuses of segragation in Hawaii are not as black and white as athey were in the 50's although unfortunately they still do exist.

1 comment:

Cheever said...

Nica, you should check out the article I posted on the class blog about the state of segregation in schools in 2007. Sadly, the problem still exists and may be even worse than it was in 1954. You make a good connection to Kamehameha Schools as a form of segregation locally. Many people from the school, including their president, would argue that because Hawaiians are on the bottom end of many socio-economic measures-- income, literacy, college education--and the high end of others-- suicide, drug use, homelessness, etc-- so the idea of a "Hawaiians"-only school is a form of affirmative action that empowers a struggling group of people. It's a tough call especially when Kamehameha seems to have so much money. If you're interested there are a bunch of books out on the subject--Broken Trust by Randy Roth comes to mind.

Great entry (except for the spelling mistakes :{ ).