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the american educational system is an example of institutionalized discrimination--on the basis of socio-economic class position. racism and class have been intertwined in the united states for much of it's history.
the reason that affirmative action is as superficial as it is follows from the illusion that racism could be separated from it's having been mapped onto the class structure and could be "addressed" without addressing class.
educational opportunities should be equal for everyone---funding should be flat, not tied to local property taxes. there can be different levels of schools, but access to them should not be tied to the income level of a child's parents. there is no equality of access to education, there is no equality of access to opportunity--what there is instead is an unbelievable waste of human potential.
to my mind, the way educational opportunities are distributed as the direct reflection of the american class order and it's spatial arrangement is a very good example of the kind of arrangement that has to be changed before the united states will come anywhere near what it says it already is.
i support affirmative action because it is better than nothing--but it is also a shallow 60s liberal bit of legislation designed to address symptoms without touching any of the causes. it is better than nothing because, despite its superficiality, it is a recognition of the history that the social order had made, even as it pretends that if you make a gesture and nothing more to address racism you make the rest of it ok.
as an aside, i've long been more sympathetic to malcolm x than to martin luther king.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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