Our Voices: Brown v. Board’s integration hurt more often than helped students

We’ve been living through a pandemic in the last year, but there’s been another one going on in front of us this whole time. Some say that racism is a pandemic that has plagued this country and continues to cause irreparable damage to Black people. I submit that public education is a pandemic, engrossed with systematic racism, whiteness, and white supremacy, that has led to racial trauma for Black children.

“Whiteness” is not seen but can be measured; it’s normalized, and is rooted in supremacy based on skin color. “White supremacy” encompasses the historical acts of White people to enslave groups of people with darker skin colors, to consistently colonize or establish political control of these people in this country for its own gain (money or capitalism) through war and violence.

A formal or public education began as a luxury for wealthy white males. The 14th Amendment of the Constitution outlines the right to a public education for all. However, it was designed to be segregated by race and to be disparately funded. Schools for Black students were grossly underfunded due to whiteness and white supremacy. A quality education was reserved for those who are worthy and expected to be world leaders.

But Blacks have always turned lemons into lemonade. Blacks took the small and poorly lit classrooms and used textbooks and produced well-educated students who attended “Historically Black Colleges and Universities” (HBCUs). They naturally noticed the inequities and began to advocate for better.

The Brown vs. Board of Education legal case argued that segregated public schools are inherently unequal and not aligned with the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. At the conclusion of the case, the decision to integrate schools by Chief Justice Earl Warren stated “to separate children from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of race generates feelings of inferiority as to their status in the community and that affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely to be ever be undone.”

The entire decision and the subsequent public school system it created were both hypocritical and problematic because integration was created solely on the backs of Black children. Instead of helping Black children, integration hurt them.

The court testimony that it harmed Black children and not white children assumed that Black children were inferior. The benefits of integration for white students continues to be ignored. The other problem is that its implementation entailed sending black children to schools that predominately white students attend.

Public schools continue to be segregated by race due to housing patterns. I grew up in South Carolina in a racially segregated community of Black families. I attended schools with predominately Black students and majority Black teachers and administrators. I fondly remember feeling joy in kindergarten with a nice older Black woman teacher. My favorite teacher was a Black physical education teacher who was also my coach for volleyball, basketball, and track in high school. Most of all I remember that most teachers believed in me. No one ever mentioned or compared me to white students, as we had very few. Upon graduation, many of my classmates planned to attend one of eight Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) in South Carolina. Most of the stories about attending HBCUs included it feeling like family, having fun, and making life-long friends. As an impending first- generation college student, I did not choose to attend an HBCU (a decision I will always regret).

I attended public, predominately white institutions (PWIs) and experienced college as a school, not a family. The racial trauma I experienced attending classes with white students grew over time as I moved from undergraduate to advanced degree programs. I remember sitting in a class where a professor was describing all the inventions of white men and I asked what were the Black people doing during this time. A white student spoke up to say, we can’t rewrite history, this is just the facts. The implication was that the history taught in schools and textbooks that featured only white achievements only incorporating must be facts. White students seemed surprised that I was equally smart. I spent a lot of time with my fellow classmates and they told me that they could notice that I was treated differently.

I experienced several psychological stressors while attending PWIs. Some of the stressors include “imposter syndrome” which made me feel that I did not belong; “racial identity” which made me believe that I needed to succeed to help the Black community; “stereotype threat” made me work toward not fitting the stereotypes about Black students. I was successful despite the environmental stress due to my early learning experience. During the psychological and social developmental years, my public schools helped me see myself as a person who can learn because I was surrounded by Black teachers as role models.

I believe we need reparations in education. Those reparations must begin with the goal of acknowledging and compensating Blacks for the continued injustices in public education since integration. Reparations must include anti-racist actions such as “equitable” and targeted funding to support proven academic strategies like full-day preschool and kindergarten in public schools that majority Blacks attend (located in their neighborhood) with qualified Black teachers and a culturally diverse curriculum. Reparation must also include more funding to HBCUs.

This reparation plan leads to the original goal of “separate but equal”. Currently most white parents can choose schools with majority white students, white teachers, and a curriculum that represents white history. Black students deserve the same options. To think otherwise, is to perpetuate whiteness and white supremacy and the hypocrisy found in public education in America.

Shambra Mulder Ph.D. is a community activist.

This story was originally published April 23, 2021 at 8:30 AM.