On Choosing Our Name
When Integrated Schools was created, our founder, Courtney Mykytyn, fielded criticism about the name of our organization. She felt strongly that “integrated” was the correct word to use, even if it did spark a reaction from people. We continue to believe that the word “integrated” brings the most accuracy and clarity.
Thurgood Marshall stated in his dissent in Milliken v Bradley in 1974, “Unless our children begin to learn together, there is little hope that our people will ever learn to live together.” Public schools provide a natural environment for children and families from different backgrounds to learn about each other, as well as develop understanding of others’ experiences, if those schools are integrated. To realize an actual multi-racial democracy, we must begin to integrate our spaces. Our society has reached the limits of what can be accomplished when our children attend separate and unequal schools.
Those of us using the word “integration” today must understand that Black communities and other communities of color may have legitimate historical mistrust and skepticism. With the vision of what can be accomplished with integration also comes the reality of the pain of past integration – or more accurately, desegregation – efforts. As the Equal Justice Initiative instructs, “to overcome racial inequality, we must confront our history.” We cannot shy away from the violence of desegregation’s historical roots: the busing and protests and federal troop deployments, the redlining of neighborhoods and secession of districts. Black communities suffered greatly in the wake of Brown v. Board of Education. Black teachers were fired as Black students were forced into schools with teachers and students who saw them as inferior, while many Black schools were shut down entirely, to the detriment of Black communities. (See work by Vanessa Siddle Walker.)
It’s also important to understand that while anti-Black racism is at the center of segregation, White communities have historically segregated themselves from ALL communities of color, hoarding power and opportunity.
To build trust between communities that have for too long lived separately, we must be unequivocal in acknowledging our past. We must be similarly resolute about the everyday and coded violence of our many contemporary forms of segregation. The majority of White families and White communities have all but given up talking about integration, probably because it is demanding and thorny work. It isn’t for the timid.
Meaningful integration requires us to be fierce, to look inequity in the eye and demand better from our institutions and ourselves. It requires us to remember that the only way through these difficulties and discomforts is together. We strive for integration because segregation is not sustainable in a world where all people’s humanity is valued.