Why "neighborhood schools" may trump widely praised diversity policy in Wake Co School Board upset

[zazen]

A potential runoff is the only step between changing the composition of the Wake County School Board (whose leadership encompasses Raleigh, NC) to majority Republican for the first time in several years. Wake County's diversity policy, and its educational outcomes, were recently praised in a Gerald Grant's _Hope and Despair in the American City: Why There Are No Bad Schools in Raleigh_ (May 2009). However, its practices of annual redistricting tens of thousands of schoolchildren, largely in wealthy, mushrooming Western Wake County, and forcing children to attend year-round schools, have angered so many parents that they formed a partnership to oust the diversity advocates in favor of "neighborhood schools." Differences in strategy have fallen into the tired Republican/Democratic designations, though anecdotally speaking, a few people self-identified in each party have told me personally that they support the supposedly "opposite" positions.

Leaving aside the complexity of the issue of rebudgeting to promote diversity while not busting up neighborhoods, two trends are arguably emerging from this election. First, the presidency of Barack Obama has altered the perception of race and of racism in America. While a percentage of white Republicans (and some party line crossing Democrats) were undoubtedly interpreting "diversity" through the lens of the nationally trumped up fears by the far right of some emerging, African American-socialist-authoritarian tyranny, other well-meaning whites (and no doubt some blacks) were thinking that the urgency underlying older diversifying strategies has lessened given that that the President of the United States is an African American.

Since the 1960s, moving somewhere "for good schools" has operated as code for systemic racism, as much as it has been an honest impulse on the part of any caring parent. It has functioned to motivate whites to systemically (and often unconsciously) resegregate themselves into predominantly white neighborhoods and their children into the most predominantly white ("successful") schools possible. Both whites who are self-consciously racist as well as a proportion of those who are actively anti-racist in their personal lives interpreted yesterday's election against "Obama's America," which if nothing else has uncovered the silent, systemic racism still pulsating in the heart of American society. Some redoubled their racism out of fear; others felt it was safe to try new diversity strategies, because of the gains African Americans have made. Regardless of where one stands on the issue, it is hard to miss that awareness of and reaction to systemic racism, and new, more conscious choices around it, will drive a lot of citizens' decisions in the next few years.

Second, the term "neighborhood" is resonating with more Americans from across the political spectrum as part of an incipient movement toward relocalization. Those conversant with "post-peak transition" see neighborhood schools as inevitable, given immiment transportation limitations and the need for neighborhoods to become more unified and self-sustaining. Economic uncertainty and an overall sociocultural withdrawal from the unfulfilled promises of "flat Earth" globlization are also exerting pulls on people, who may not be explicitly aware of peak oil or the unsustainability or our current economy, to retrench in their local lives and with their neighbors. A record number of victory gardens have blossomed (some with less success than others) across America this summer and fall. Conservative fundamentalists have been "relocalizing" for years; liberals, progressives, and the non-political are now seeing benefits to more neighbor-to-neighbor reliance as well. A call for "neighborhood schools" now carries a message of progressive adaptability to frightening new circumstances while simultaneously evoking nostalgia for a pre-globalized America, where the largely white middle class felt it had fixed institutions upon which it could rely.

The political consultants will be rushing to poll, analyze, and read the tea leaves of the recent election in advance of 2010, as their hourly fees rack up. I may be wrong about these emerging trends. I just hope as they examine the underlying drivers of this election, they dig deep.