A New Jim Crow Era: Blacks Only

 New Jim Crow Era (full series)
Blacks Only | Modern Parallels
Segregated Schools

I remember learning about the Jim Crow era as a young Black girl in 4th grade. Thinking about what it would have been like to attend a school with only other Black children, even though I am mixed with a white mother, I would not have been allowed in some of her spaces. My mother’s biracial relationship would have been thoroughly condemned and possibly dangerous for our family in the Jim Crow South.

My black father shared stories of being spit on as a young boy in Kentucky, something I never imagined experiencing until I studied abroad in Italy. There, an old Italian man spat in my face for being black, American, or both—I’m not sure which. Nevertheless, it was traumatizing, to say the least. When I came home from studying abroad, I felt grateful to live in America.

Surely, this type of blatant segregation from the Jim Crow Era will never make its way back to this country, where black people are noticed more for their skin color rather than their character, where spaces will be marked off for certain races, where people’s prejudices about skin color trump human decency and equality? Let that history never repeat itself! Surely, we aren’t going back to when standards will be lowered or raised depending on which shade in a crayon box your skin matches?

We have learned from our Jim Crow Era mistakes in the past, right? Or are we seeing a resurgence of a new type of segregation, not just in the South but permeating most public institutions, including our nation’s public schools?

Blacks Only

“Would you like to advise the Black Girl Magic Club?” My coworker eagerly asked me at school one day after a long day of teaching 9th-grade English learners and low readers.

“What club?” I replied, more than a little surprised.

“I am starting the Black Girl Magic Club as a safe space for the black teen girls attending The Ranch.” The Ranch was the nickname for the newly opened, state-of-the-art Rancho San Juan High School in my school district in Salinas, CA.

The school demographics were predominantly Hispanic, with a small percentage of African American students and an even smaller percentage of those students being girls. So the proposed Black Girl Magic Club would be maybe seven black girls, some of mixed-race. Meetings would only have black teacher-advisors. The coworker who asked me to join her also created Black Lives Matter lessons for all teachers to use in their homerooms, often complained about her coworkers’ microaggressions, and was known for the large Obama poster in her classroom. Let’s just say that our skin tone was one of the only things we had in common, but that was enough for her to ask me to advise the club with her as the only other black teacher on campus. I politely declined the invite.

This got me thinking. Would a White Girl Magic Club be allowed? White students were a minority in my school district. Middle school and high school students can be brutal to anyone different, and I witnessed my fair share of bullying of white students. But a White Girl Magic Club would certainly not be allowed. In fact, if a white teacher dared to propose the idea, they would face repercussions, perhaps national news coverage as well.

When I bring up objections to this type of separation and privileges based on color, the counterargument often goes something like this: “Whites were allowed to have their own spaces and privileges for two hundred years; it’s our turn now.” This is why, among progressives and leftists, the term equality is rejected in favor of equity. They want to force their vision of equity, or equal outcomes instead of equal opportunities, on society using what is often called reverse racism, or in other words, justifying racism against white people. To them, exclusion of certain races and special privileges for different races is just fine, as long as it’s white people who are excluded and minorities who are given special privileges.

This is why in 2020, during the aftermath of the George Floyd riots and the igniting of the Black Lives Matter movement across the nation, I received a gift facilitated by my district just for being a black teacher. A group of parents assembled gifts for the around two dozen black teachers in the district, including an “I love being black” sticker, a “black educators matter” mask, some honey body wash, a letter that greeted me with the “ancient African greeting” of “Hotep,” and a label that included a black power fist along with an outline of the continent of Africa.

My known black ancestors are from Jamaica and India. It was a ridiculous gift, to say the least—peak pandering. I wrote a letter to the school board in protest. In it, I stated that I would rather be honored as a teacher for my work in the classroom rather than my skin color. I also wrote about the divisive Ethnic Studies lessons that contained Critical Race Theory. Because of this, I was called “anti–people of color” by the board president. What a switch! From being honored with a special gift for black teachers to now being labeled as a racist!

I recently spoke to a 4th-grade teacher I know in the Fresno Unified School District (who would like to remain anonymous for obvious reasons). While she was in a district meeting, there was a special tribute to black educators, with the speaker wearing a “Thank you, Black Educators” shirt. The hilarious part of this story is that not a single black educator was in the room. She also told me that this year, in her district they are honoring all the black students with special certificates in a ceremony as part of the district’s Rise program. It was created to celebrate the accomplishments of African American students in the district.

My anonymous teacher stated that students who fail multiple subjects receive academic achievement rewards, and students with constant behavior problems receive citizenship rewards. No other race in her district has a special event like this. It is exclusively for the black students. Now reverse the races in your imagination, with special thank yous for white teachers and special awards for white students only, and then cast this story into the 1940s, and you see how easily this would fit into the Jim Crow South.

In the next installment, so-called progressives have resurrected all the elements of the Jim Crow Era.