Our Biggest Challenge

On our way home from my grandparents' today, my mother and I stopped at Starbucks. I had a Pumpkin Spice Latte (delicious!!!).

The cups still have the "The Way I See It" quotes on them and, lucky for me, I got #35, NAACP chairman, Julian Bond's quote. Whoop-di-do!

You can see the profiles of contributors here.

Good old Julian's quote is:

Today our schools are just as segregated as they were in 1969, the year after Dr. King died. Race is the biggest challenge we face, and we have proven unequal to facing it.

Now, one must consider why schools are segregated, if they are indeed as segregated as Bond alleges. Is the government doing the segregation? Or are people self-segregating?

When I worked in schools, I saw children of all "colors." There was no segregation going on here.

If people voluntarily choose to live in neighborhoods with mostly people of the same race, which results in a sort of segregation in schools, then is it really a problem? Should we begin making schools have certain quotas of people and transport those people all around the city and school district, merely to achieve a "perfect" mix?

I don't think so. That would mean seeing only one's skin color. In this country, people have the freedom to live where they want to (which means children will go to a specific school, unless the parents make alternate arrangements). Should we begin dictating where people can live, just so schools will have a perfect mix of races?

That's ridiculous.

And as for "race" being the biggest challenge we face, that's complete b.s. Has Julian Bond ever heard of TERRORISM??? Because TERRORISM trumps race any day. Does it matter what race someone is when a homicide bomber sets off his bomb? Everyone around him dies or is injured.

I don't think the terrorists let people of certain races off the planes on 9/11. Everyone died.

And if we are all dead because of terrorism, then there won't be a need for schools.