Checking on the Kamala Harris Dem’s Racist Mouth on Busing

ABOUT KAMALA HARRIS AND BUSING

by John Hinderaker   at PowerLine:

Paul has been on top of the apparent Kamala Harris fraud. Harris, attacking Joe Biden for having collaborated with segregationist Democrats in the Senate to oppose school busing, claimed that she was bused as a kid, in Berkeley, and it did her a world of good. Or something like that.

Given the demography and geography of Berkeley at the time–she was 10 years old in 1974–it seems highly unlikely that Harris, the daughter of two PhDs, one from India and one from Jamaica, was bused into a white school so she could escape the ghetto and mix with the children of educated parents.

But that isn’t what strikes me most forcibly about this story. A Democratic presidential contender lied about her background for political gain? The horror! Or, rather, take a number. At least Harris hasn’t claimed to be a member of an Indian tribe.

What I think is most remarkable about this story is that the Democrats are now nostalgic for busing! Joe Biden is a villain because he opposed it decades ago, while Harris is a heroine…or a martyr…or something, because she participated in it.

But here’s the thing: in the 1970s, everyone opposed busing to achieve racial balance in public schools. Federal courts in urban areas around the country had ordered children to be bused from their homes to faraway schools to achieve a numerical, bean-counting ethnic balance in public schools. The result was a disaster: neighborhood schools were destroyed, student achievement declined, violence erupted, civil disobedience by parents of all races ensued. Finally, as I recall, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an order: No more busing!

I was living in the Boston area during the early 1970s, when busing was in its heyday. Boston’s public schools were war zones, and public education was being destroyed by the maniacal busing regime to which the city was subjected by a federal judge. A woman named Louise Day Hicks ran for Chairman of the Boston School Board, as I recall, and won handily behind the slogan: “She says what you think.”

In the 1970s pretty much everyone, of all races, who wasn’t on the take in some way, hated busing. Its demise was unlamented. But now, to my amazement, the Democrats are nostalgic for the busing regime!

I realize that Democrats assume Americans have no historical memory. Still, this strikes me as a suicide mission. If the Democrats seriously want to re-institute school busing after the fiasco of the 1960s and 1970s, or even to look back fondly on the busing disaster of those years, be our guest! The Democrats will be the party of open borders, unlimited taxpayer-funded medical care for illegal immigrants, outlawing health insurance, busing little children hither and yon to achieve statistical equality in hundreds of thousands of school rooms, and more. This hardly looks like a path to victory.

….a note from ghr:

(A special note from ghr regarding John Hinderaker’s revival of racial Truth of the Time fiasco of the 1960s and 1970s.   I was a public high school teacher in Minneapolis  then when thanks to President Lyndon Johnson’s ‘well meaning’  national  law  “Aid to Dependent Children”  fiasco began the destruction and disappearance of the married black family in our America! In our Minneapolis Central High then black male savagery near or on campus  ran amok terrorizing, robbing, beating white students, and sometimes black students on campus grounds who were caught talking to anyone white!

White teachers at the majority black Central High School in Minneapolis where I taught Social Studies in 1971-2, for their own safety,  had to park  in a special  fenced in area adjacent to the school’s basement boiler room where they could enter school without being robbed or beaten.   White female  teachers were encouraged by administration not to bring purses into the school.   Certain days were, according to the dictates of these  hoodlum blacks  (all boys ages 15 to 25 hanging around outdoors) days when colored students were not to talk to white teachers during school time, OR ELSE.    One of my boys in class had his winter jacket hanging in his locker set on fire….in late November as I remember…..because he didn’t pay notice to the thugs’ rules!

Teachers had been ordered NEVER to talk about black hoodlum disorder in school or they could be fired!   A year previous the public school teachers throughout Minneapolis went out on strike…..a violation at the  time of STATE LAW!

All of the teachers who went out on strike lost whatever seniority protection they had from their school board-union contracts.   I think I was the only seniority teacher actually fired that year.

None of the horrors occurring at Central High School inside school or on campus, and there were many,  ever made it into the Minneapolis StarTribune papers.   Only one occurred which couldn’t have been controlled by the schools or school board.   A black kid with gun from a St. Paul school  went after a Central black guy during lunch hour firing a shot or two or three in the lunch room.   He managed to miss his target!

By state law, Central school authorities were required to report shootings to the police!

 

Kamala Harris Not Too Keen on Truth!

KAMALA HARRIS’S BERKELEY SCHOOL DAYS

by Paul MIrengoff  at PowerLine:

The East Bay Times reports on the busing of Kamala Harris in Berkeley, California circa 1970, about which I have been speculating. If the report is accurate, Harris’s claim that she was “part of the second class to integrate her public schools” is not quite true.

Berkeley’s public schools were integrated long before Harris was bused. However, the busing program that more fully integrated her elementary school was instituted the year before Harris started school.

The elementary school in question, Thousand Oaks Elementary, was in an affluent area in Berkeley the hills. Before the busing commenced, it was more than 90 percent white, according to the East Bay Times. Thus, Harris exaggerated when she said she was part of the second class to integrate her school. The school was already integrated. However, it became more fully integrated as a result of busing.

Joe Biden’s response to Harris — that the school district implemented the busing program voluntarily, not pursuant to a court order — is true. According to the Times, the busing program was the brainchild of a “progressive” superintendent.

The most interesting question to me was whether, absent the busing, Harris would not have attended an integrated school. Harris was careful not to make this claim, but I think she was trying to create that impression.

It seems clear that Harris would have attended an integrated school absent busing. The Times describes Harris’s neighborhood as “more diverse [and] less affluent” than the neighborhood to which she was bused. Because the neighborhood was racially diverse, the local school would have been too. As I had speculated, busing was not required for Harris to attend a racially integrated school.

What, then, was the point of the busing? Clearly, it was to increase the number of blacks at Thousand Oaks and other schools in affluent areas. The assumption, presumably, was that blacks would receive a better education at these schools than at their neighborhood school.

The Times suggests that they did, and that might well have been the case. But the only evidence it presents is from a black woman who says that the “times tables” she learned at the school to which she was bused set her on the path to becoming an engineer.

The notion that students had to be bused in order to learn “times tables” is ludicrous.

Moreover, to the extent black students got a better education by virtue of being bused to affluent neighborhoods, white students who were transported to the “diverse” schools must have received a worse education due to busing. The busing Harris touts should be viewed as an attempt to favor some students over others due to their race. As such, it should be considered unconstitutional.

The one thing we know for sure is that both black and white students were yanked from their neighborhoods, separated from their friends, and spent an inordinate amount of time getting to and from school. No wonder Berkeley discarded the busing program in the 1990s.

If Harris is the Democratic nominee for president or vice president, I hope she will be asked to state her position on the busing of young school children for racial purposes in today’s America.