I’m assuming that everyone on Kos would, if they could, do their best to dismantle systemic racism when presented the opportunity. Here’s an easy opportunity.
Many are aware of “redlining”:
In the United States and Canada, redlining is the systematic denial of various services to residents of specific, often racially associated, neighborhoods or communities, either explicitly or through the selective raising of prices. While the best known examples of redlining have involved denial of financial services such as banking or insurance, other services such as health care or even supermarkets have been denied to residents. In the case of retail businesses like supermarkets, purposely locating stores impractically far away from targeted residents results in a redlining effect.
While largely halted, and illegal, redlining still persists in the form of school segregation.
An excellent Wall Street Journal article today (twice a day the broken clock has the right tIme, eh?) breaks down the problem:
Children in previously redlined neighborhoods are prevented by law from attending schools of their choice outside of the historic “redlines”.
The laws were created to prevent “incompatible racial elements” mixing in schools.
In many states, it’s a crime for parents to send their children to a school for which they are not zoned, regardless of whether or not another school can better serve a student’s individual needs.
We are speaking of course of situations where the children from the north side of the street go to the well-funded academically well-performing predominantly white school and children from the south side of the street go to the poorly funded academically underperforming predominantly minority school.
Ask your state, county, city commissioners: is it illegal in your area for children to go to the school of their choice?
In Georgia it is:
Using someone else’s address to enroll a child in a different school district or zone is currently illegal in Georgia, and punishable by up to $1,000 in fines and criminal prosecution.
If it is, then act, and work to remove the effects of racist redlining legacy laws from the books.