From: Pat Inniss (inniss@sprynet.com)
Date: Sun Aug 26 2001 - 19:24:22 MDT
Mike Lorrey wrote:
>
> <snip>
> Well, considering how much the left accepts the means justifying the
> ends if it is their ends being served, you may notice that literacy
> among African Americans was much higher prior to Brown v. Board of
> Education than it is today....
Mike -
This allegation that illiteracy has increased among African Americans
following Brown vs Board of Education is, as well as surprising, also
quite inaccurate. According to Arthur Hu's statistics site
(http://www.leconsulting.com/arthurhu/index/literacy.htm), which I hope
you find a sufficiently conservative source, illiteracy among blacks
over age 14 declined from 11% to 3.6% from 1947 to 1969. Also check out
http://nces.ed.gov/publications/majorpub/120yr/porintr1.txt. I'd be
interested in seeing the source of your misinformation. I see many
distortions and outright fabrications circulating in conservative
circles. I am beginning to suspect that the garden variety conservative
mentality may be somehow less inclined to skepticism and more toward
accepting questionable data which supports existing ideas. The
conservative disinformation machinery on the internet certainly has no
liberal analog.
It might help to understand more fully the context of racial
discrimination in education. It formed part of a system to
disenfranchise blacks and poor people in general. Another important
component was literacy tests. If you didn't educate blacks, you also
denied them political power. This would seem to be highly
anti-libertarian, the way many libertarians present their philosophy.
It is interesting that your allegation seems to reveal some hostility
toward school desegregation. I am surprised that you would attribute
Brown vs Board of Education to "the left." Being perhaps something of a
leftist myself, I will take the compliment, but do conservatives oppose
that decision? Maybe 40 years ago, but today? I had thought you
considered yourself a libertarian. Yet, opposition to school
desegregation would seem to fit a pattern I have noticed among some
"libertarians" of espousing anti-libertarian positions when they
conflict with conservative inclinations. In this instance, a libertarian
would, if true to his or her philosophy, support Brown vs. Board of
Education because it removed government practices which were restrictive
on personal freedom, e.g. attending the school of a person's choice. I
have heard many libertarians complain about civil rights laws when they
impinged upon the behavior of individuals. But what libertarian
principle is transgressed by Brown vs Board of Education, which only
increases personal choice at the expense of government control? One
things libertarians frequently promise, in defense of the removal of
civil rights protections in the private sphere, is that a libertarian
government, such as it might be, would treat all citizens fairly
regardless of race. Is this not what Brown vs Board of Education was all
about? Who would oppose such a law? Certainly such opposition could not
be motivated merely be libertarian philosophy.
Regards,
Pat Inniss
inniss@sprynet.com
http://home.sprynet.com/~inniss
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