I've
publicly apologized for my role in public school integration. I was
wrong to support racial integration but I didn't know what an
alternative was at the time.
Now I realize that public school
racial integration was a bigger disaster than I thought. In openly
discussing my apology I have learned from five reliable close friends
and family members who were in integrated schools in the San Francisco
Bay Area and in Sacramento that the situation was horrific, much worse
than has ever been publicly disclosed. Not only did racial integration
chase out whites, lower the educational standards and failed the
primary goal of integrating neighborhoods...but the non-black kids who
remained in the schools were treated viciously.
The presence of a large number of black kids in the public schools meant (and still means) that non-black boys and girls were (and are) constantly threatened with the loss of their lives, mugged, beat up and incessantly abused. The data is tangible and shocking.
This situation is unacceptable, disgraceful...a harsh tear in the social fabric and a social blight that is intolerable. It was and it is.