Chapter 1 - Why the question? - The Groups in Question

Chapter 1 - Why the question?

"The first man to see an illusion by which men have flourished for centuries surely stands in a lonely place. In that moment of insight he, and he alone, see the obvious which to the uninitiated yet appears as nonsense or worse, as madness or heresy. This confidence is not the obstinance of the fool, but the surety of him who knows what he knows..."

- The Dancing Wu Li Masters by Gary Zukav


The Groups in Question

The question became obvious to me during a meeting with a local group of civic leaders. At the time my wife, children and I were living in a small Southern town in South Carolina. Census information about the town indicated its population distribution was reverse of most of the rest of the nation. More than 70% of the people within the surrounding community classify themselves as black. Roughly 30% classify themselves as white. Asian, Native American, Hispanic, Inuit and Samoan populations are virtually zero. To many Americans it may seem odd to have a whole community almost completely composed of two racial groups. Especially in a case in which the racial group is dominated by the minority classification of black. However, in smaller Southern towns this population distribution is very common. Subsequently (and personally I think luckily for those who get to experience it), Southern culture maintains a difference from other cultural mannerisms throughout the United States.

When I was a child I was raised in a community that appeared to me to be largely white but with a significant black population. The reality was the population was predominately black, however, because of the confines placed on the society, cross-racial exposure limited interactions. It seemed during the late 1900s that although these racial populations were near each other their interaction maintained a sense of separation that was as real as the walls of a sandbox that stops the white granules from entering in to the green blades of grass. Many people who lack the Southern experience think the division is enforced by some set of written laws combined with clandestine groups committing horrific acts of terrorism. In the more distant past some of this is true. Slavery, and Jim Crow laws were established on the basis of the anthropological science and Christian interpretations of mankind's entrance into the world. However, by the late 1970's the anthropological interpretations of evolution were changing. The strict dogma of Christian creationism was loosing strength as a factual understanding and became seen more as an analogous myth that represented some unknown science. But the barriers remained. Even today anyone in the area will tell you, churches, funeral homes, doctors, bars, and in some enclaves even stores remain classified as black or white. There is no law, rule, or even methods of intimidation that keep these locations separate. There are no signs in the windows and few if anyone would challenge you for entering one that is different from your racial classification, yet casual inspection of the populations clearly show that integration has not yet occurred.

On a farm in the south, I worked side by side with blacks in the field. As a twelve-year-old boy a black man that spoke unintelligible English to anyone not from the area taught me to drive. I competed with and against blacks in sports and on any given Saturday it was common to find me walking into the swamp with a fishing pole on my shoulder, while I talked and laughed with these same black men about how many fish we would catch. However, Sunday was different. We never considered attending church together. My church was slow, methodical, almost sleepy. My church was full of liturgy, booming pipe organs that played the hymns of John Wesley from the 19th century. My church started at 12:00 and was over punctually at 1:00. I remember Charlie (one of my work and fishing partners) would say he didn't get out of church until 3:00 or 4:00. They hadn't collected enough money and they kept the doors locked in the stifling heat until they had. Charlie would smartly hide his money in his sock. When you drove by Charlie's church you could hear the load speakers, the screaming, the yelling mixed with the sound of drums, guitars and clapping hands. Never did you hear the melodic thunder of a pipe organs. But their hands clapped. They danced and sweat and repeated phrases first spoken by the pastor then by the congregation. They didn't need hymnals as they either knew the music and or it was repeated verse by verse. If you ask anyone, to include myself, today, why blacks and whites in our community don't worship together, we will tell you it has to do with the method of worship not that one group is white and the other is black.
This however, did not explain the educational process. Church service is a personal decision but what about school. School is standardized. Today, Federal and State laws regulate everything from the first day of football practice to the quantifying of math standards. So why in these rural communities have schools remained virtually segregated by choice? To answer this now without further introspection into racial classification will seem contrite. It is only significant expansion of the thought process that we can begin to open the doors to this answer. On this point is what I have been propelled to research.

Late in 1997, a brilliant young white woman named Michelle approached me. Michelle had been tasked with the job of Economic Development Coordinator under a Federal grant process. Her job seemed to be Herculean in nature. Our county had been declared an Enterprise Community. Enterprise Community is a euphemistic name given to any county, city or small location that had terrible levels of unemployment, negative population and economic growth during the 1980s, and 1990s. Michelle had taken a realistic look at our community's situation. Our infrastructure was reasonable. Land prices and tax rates were low. Crime rates were low. Commute miles to available office buildings were in the single digits. There is water, there is recreation, we are located reasonable distances to large urban areas, but the economic situation is dismal. When the rest of the United States was experiencing 4 and 5% unemployment, our community had 14%. When the places like the suburbs of Atlanta, Mobile, Charleston and Savannah were experiencing unprecedented growth, we were actually seeing population declines. Furthermore, the population declines are found in the key tax base age range. Effectively, our community had all the standards of living to propel it into a significant growth region, yet our population continues to decline and economic situations are similar to third world conditions.



Many local authorities dismissed the census report as inaccurate sampling, but not Michelle. She saw a real problem with the economic health of the community. Although, she determined the problem to be multi-faceted, she recognized a major reason for the population loss in the key tax base age group could be attributed to the education system. The Federal and State Government threw empty dollar after dollar trying to chase the woes from the school system. Despite the many programs, SAT scores slumped and violence in the public school system grew. Not amazingly young productive adults raced to find another solution. To many the answer was simple, join the ranks of people that were already fleeing to the burgeoning suburbs of the more metropolitan areas. But the community and local area has not always been this way. In one of the least populated largest land mass counties in the State, the community can lay claim to: A key negotiator of the SALT II treaties; A Nobel prize winning Chemist; the first black Astronaut; the most successful football coach ever and one of the wealthiest Americans to ever live.

In order to see the correlation of this to racial policies, we have to return to the time of desegregation. In 1954 the well-known case of Brown versus the Board of Education stated separate but equal was not equal. By the 1960s Southern schools had begun to integrate. By the 1970s the integration was complete and with its completion came the establishment of non-parochial private schools throughout the South. Our community was no different than any other. The white community banded together and established an all white non-parochial yet Christian oriented school. Some 30 years later this is still true for rural Southern American towns. The public school system in my community is 90 percent black and roughly 10 percent white. The white children that attend the public system typically have two strikes against them. One they are socio-economically on the lower end of the scale. This suggest they have had limited exposure to a diverse and positive life experiences outside of the local environment. Secondly parental involvement is limited with these children. Perhaps this is not true in all cases but consider the rationale. Racial overtones control what restaurant you visit. It controls church functions, social gatherings, weddings and funerals. If a white child attends the school predominately composed of black children when so much else is governed by the racial separation, one must only conclude either the parent has no other option financially and/or no concern to the social pretexts and/or no consideration of the welfare of the child. What this suggests and what one will find through inspection, the white children in the school system lack significant parental involvement.

Furthermore, the University of South Carolina so recognized cultural differences in the area that they sent a team to conduct research on the local black population. The research focused on black single female parenthood and the effects on the children in a rural poverty stricken community. The attentive parent of white and black children have chosen in large numbers, to either place their children in the private school, incurring significant financial burden; home school the child, incurring significant personal burden; purchase property in adjacent counties to legitimize the transfer of their child to the other school system; or to remove themselves from the area completely. Despite the many financial incentives for businesses and high quality of living conditions in the area, it is extremely difficult to attract development to the community. All this is not to suggest that the State of South Carolina had not already recognized schools in certain communities were not providing the needed solution desired by the members of the community. The State had recognized the problem and implemented a solution entitled Charter Schools. This is why Michelle approached me. Given the problems aforementioned she knew that some solution needed to be addressed in our county. Knowing she needed both white and black community support to make it successful Michelle approached me to inquire of my interest. I was in favor of it and fought diligent with her and others to see it happen.

Michelle and I coordinated a meeting of community leaders. I began to talk to my peers about the beauty of the opportunity. The envisionment was that a charter school of 100 elementary school children would be created. In order for the children to be admitted to the school, parents would be required to provide service to the school. This service process suggested to us that the children enrolled would have strong familial support and parents that took an active involvement in their child’s well being. To my wife, myself and others this was a criteria that best defined where my children should be educated. We felt that parental involvement in an impressionable child resulted in better judgement of the children as a collective group and individual regardless of the skin color, or osteomorphology (bone differences). The school creation process took significant work. Michelle located facilities, she coordinated with the US Department of Agriculture, which is chartered for Rural Economic Development. She sought out financial support from local industry, and the Chamber of Commerce, and the Economic Development Board. I questioned and suggested to my peers on their level of interest. I presented the option of reducing morning drive times to distant county schools, the reduction in personal expenses for private school tuition, and the relieving of personal effort incurred through home schooling. The last pieces of the puzzle were to obtain school board concurrence and begin the enrollment process. A meeting was called of all the key players less the members of the school board.

Believing there may be some feeling of usurpation of power from the public school system our group felt a collective planning session was needed. We felt, with key industry leaders, the local technical college, established economic development groups and the local Chamber support would enable us to convince the school board to grant the need for the charter school and asage them of any usurption of the job they do. We had no idea of the real trouble that lay ahead. In the meeting a discussion arose regarding a neighboring county's effort to create a Charter School. They had successfully created a Charter School and were now being investigated by the Federal Government for circumventing desegregation laws. Unlike the Northern Communities like Boston, there had never needed to be a substantial formal bussing program in South Carolina. Distribution of black and white populations allowed the schools to send the children closest to their homes. In many cases this caused schools to maintain unbalanced levels of diversity, however, the diversity remains. In a community it is common to see a school that is 75% white and 25% black. While on the other side of the county a school is 30% white and 70% black. In the case of Georgetown, the building of a new High School due to population growth was going to create a situation in which the old school would become significantly black while the new high school would become significantly white. This created an investigation that uncovered the crux of the problem we were to experience.

Georgetown had created a Charter School. The State mandate for the creation of such schools require that any school created must mirror the demographics of the established public school population within 10 percent. As I see it, there is two problems with this requirement. First the established public school population does not include those children that had moved to private school, out of county schools, nor home schools. This policy therefore does not consider the community as a whole but rather only those enrolled in the school process. Second and much more importantly what were the conditions for classification? In Georgetown the parents recognized this stipulation to be a bureaucratic billet to fill. The Georgetown parents recognized that claiming heritage was not an easy process. Children that had in their lineage Native American heredity could claim that lineage. The same was true if the child could claim Asian or Hispanic or any other form other than white. In turn children that were fair skin, with light eyes who for most of their life had classified as white could now join the school without lottery processes. Inevitably the Georgetown school district succumbed to the legal pressure applied to it by the Federal Government. This was a loss for the children, the parents and the community.

In our case the solution would not get as far as Georgetown. During our final meeting the US Department of Agriculture representative brought forward the need to comply with the racial make up for the school. Since our public school district was 90% black and 10% white no more than 20 white children at most would be allowed to attend the school. It was theorized that if 100 black children applied then 100 would be granted admission. In the case that 30 white children applied, they would be faced with a lottery based acceptance, provided there were slots available, not already taken by black children. This policy seemed to be counterproductive to me. Here we were attempting to create a solution to further integrate the local schools in a method that parental involvement would create a further sense of diversity in our community only to find that the laws of the State were biasing the makeup of our decision. I could no longer sit back and quietly watch this process. The solution was simple from my perspective. All we needed to do was claim that we were all black. It was my position that neither the State nor the Federal Government maintains proper guidelines for what constitutes black, white or any other racial division. Therefore any person can claim whatever racial group that they feel is appropriate for any given condition. Since the classification process is seemingly established at random, we as people can claim whatever solution is best for us for the condition at hand. This was unacceptable to the USDA member. She retorted that I was not black and thus could not willfully apply a mistruth. My response was quick, “What makes me black. Is it skin color? Then tell me the monochromic value!” Allow the State down here with a meter that measures that value and tell use all which cross sectional area will be measured and at what time of year since people maintain different variations of color at different times and in different locations on the body.

The members agreed it was not merely skin tone that created the races. So I asked about bone density, bone morphology, blood alleles. What was it physically that determined our race and who kept the secret number to those values? Moreover, who is in charge of measuring it to insure compliance, and what was the value of the measurements resolution? To this the response was that it was ancestral and cultural. I find two problems with this to which I will expand on in great detail later. In short, the present theory of evolution suggests that we all trace back to common ancestors out of Africa. We all have common ancestors at some point. Although, at sometime it is clear populations were separated and today we maintain phenotypes (physical forms) from that isolation, but where do we stop in our ancestral quest.

Cultural discussions further incensed me. This problem alone opens a Pandora’s box that few want to open. First cultural differences suggest ethnicity rather than race. Race is a taxonomic (process of classifying based on phenotype variation) measure. Ethnicity suggests cultural differences. So let as suppose it is ethnicity in question. In this case I would argue my children’s upbringing closer resembles the ethnicity of black Americans from the Southeast, than white Americans from the Southwest. Although phenotypically whites look different from blacks, white Southerners eat the same food as black Southerners. White Southerners have much of the same speech. White Southerners have experienced many of the same life struggles. White and Black Southerners interact and support each other. Culturally many of these groups are separated little more than siblings or cousins would be after marriage. As to the Pandora’s box, racial and ethnic divisions recognize significant differences. Sufficient enough differences that our political system is created based on them. No one quote is more eloquent to this effect than that of the famed 19th century Vice President and long time Senator from the state of South Carolina:

No Group of people so sovereign to be considered a State shall ever be liable
for any law of a Federal Government” –- John C. Calhoun

Calhoun was misunderstood as being a power hungry politician. Adroitly, he was saying when a group of people come together and thereby declare themselves part of a group such as with a State, those people take on an identity compsed of acceptable social norms. Those norms must only be applicable to that group. To apply the norms to other groups will create conflict. When the government identifies groups within a locality as being from separate ethnic backgrounds, it has recognized a need for special recognition of each cultural identity. How can a government that enables this recognition return to say that the two groups must meld their identities and come together for standardized processes? This suggestion imposed on truely different ethnic groups supplants the seeds for confict. In Chapter 2, I address this quagmire and the resultant conflicting court rulings and scientific biases that emerge from it.

Our charter school never made. Michelle completed many economic development programs for the community but was never able to change the schools. Today, the school still remains separated and no policy seems to change that. The community is still confined to its financial depression. I am convinced that I learned from the situation. I learned that racial classification needed significant research and the public in large needed the exact information behind the policies. I will present more evidence that I am not the only one perplexed by these policies and when agencies are questioned about the “correct answer”, there never seems to be one. Racial division has long been a component of American society and has served to fuel conflicts for many years. But before we can even begin to classify each other let us ask what we need to do to separate the groups. This classification and separation is dangerous business that will only serve to further burden our efforts to create a stable society. We must be very exact in this process if wish to produce successful results. I believe Science provides us the insight needed, however, current policies will have to change.