Perfect example of bad research about racism in an otherwise good article

As readers of my blog know I research a lot, reading a ton of information on many different subjects. Recently I came across a paper that I thought was pretty good at the start. The paper was written in 2008 by a UofM (Dearborn) grad who actually made the honors roll named Jennifer A Huff. The article is actually good, although not as accurate as I would have liked. You can read the article at : http://www.mied.uscourts.gov/historical/newspdf/200805.pdf

This researcher wrote in one of her paragraphs “...the Supreme Court, the Court issued its most famous ruling regarding public education. Brown v. Board of Education (1954) overturned the doctrine of separate-but-equal schooling that had prevailed in the South for decades.”

This is total crap.

Brown v Board of Education overturned several previous rulings. Typically Liberal “Pro-North/Anti-South” researchers cite Plessy v Ferguson which is an 1896 Louisiana case. This ain't reality.

Back in 1849 the case of Roberts v Boston set the legal precedence that Plessy v Ferguson was built on.

Way too many Liberal researchers unfairly attack the south and make it sound as if the north had far less to do with segregation. Those of us who actually remember the sound of tanks driving down 8 Mile during 1967 have a far different perspective.

To her credit Ms Huff does point out that the north pretty much ignored DE-segregation while the south was moving towards an integrated society. In 1970 George Wallace, the guy MLK fought against during the Selma march, won the Democratic primary in Michigan.

The propagandistic myth of an integrated north vs a segregated south is as destructive to society as the myth of the Democratic party supporting civil rights.

We can learn from our mistakes when we realize that we made them and we change what we are doing. When we pretend the mistakes don't exist by making statements like “...had prevailed in the South” we display an unwillingness to accept responsibility for our mistakes.

In reality blacks have been as or more persecuted in the north than they have been in the south. Malcolm X's father was lynched right here in Michigan. Roberts v Boston (you know, Boston Mass, in the north) set the stage for “separate but equal” across the entire country, not just the south.

Back during the Civil War the Democrats in New York tried to succeed from the Union. When that failed the Democrats in New York City tried to succeed from New York State. The famous New York newspaper publisher, Horace Greeley, wrote many editorials against the Democrats and their support of slavery in New York. There were riots during the Civil War which have been renamed “draft riots” where blacks were lynched from lamp posts and black babies were thrown from the upper floors of multi-story buildings. Illiterate blacks were not told that they had been freed and were forced to work in New York city in slave like conditions long after the Civil War. Even today New York deals with immigrant slavery.

Edusnobbery and prejudice create conditions that force academic candidates for advanced degrees to continue publishing obvious falsehoods such as this garbage about segregation in the south. This may be the case where Ms Huff is concerned, or maybe her research is just sloppy and repeating the same tired anti-southern propaganda that has been popular in the North for the last hundred and fifty years.

Detroit was and really is a festering cauldron of racism based on primarily voluntary segregation. Make no mistake segregation is segregation and it creates a racial and cultural divide that is and will always be difficult to overcome while tired and ridiculous propaganda like blaming segregation on the south exists.

Ms Huff's article is worth reading, but, like a lot of the crap written about racism in the United States you have to be careful and double check the facts. Don't get caught in propaganda.