Today, tell your kids about Ruby Bridges—the first Black child at all-white public elementary school in South.
Today Ms. Bridges turns 69.
She's younger than both my parents. And more importantly, she's a reminder of the courage of our youth, of the ever present reality of systemic racism, and of the need to lead with anti-racism to counter this hate.
Let us look to leaders like Ms. Bridges, and build that more perfect union for all people in this country—grounded in true Justice for all
@Larhanya@QasimRashid you may want to follow up on how we treated the Chinese, Japanese and Irish to name a few. We share a lot of bad behaviours with the Americans. Also check on how we relocated most Inuit in the territories so that it would be easier to count them.
To add onto this, I found out within the last year or two about Sylvia Mendez. As a child, she was part of a court case in Orange County, CA that ended school segregation in California in 1946.
I had learned about Brown vs Board of Education, but not about Sylvia Mendez's similar and earlier case which happened in my own county. I didn't know there was school segregation in California.
@QasimRashid I remember this. I didn’t understand what all the fuss was about. My grandmother was disdainful and derisive towards me because I was ok with, as she put it “those schwartzes”. It took several years before I understood what she meant and I was ashamed of her. Not that I’d ever tell her that. She would’ve beaten me bloody if I ever thought about talking back to her.
@QasimRashid
Republicans want to make it illegal for your children to learn about her in school because allowing the teaching of history might hurt the feelings of the KKK and Nazis.
@QasimRashid Ruby Bridges is one year older than I am. Indeed, her ordeal is not ancient history. More accurately, what she went through perfectly fits the term, within living memory.
@QasimRashid
I am only 10 years younger than Ms. Bridges, yet it took until i was mid-life and studying in a good anthropolgy program to barely start to hear and understand the prominent historical Black voices in America. Nevermind the "White canon" of standard social science foundational training. We have got to do better.
@QasimRashid my mom was in middle school when our county was desegregated (she is about to turn 56). She has told me about it, primarily about the way her own mom reacted. She was pulled from public school—put into private school, because of “threats of violence”.
Of all the children at risk of violence during that period, I doubt white students ranked number one. This was in the 70s—not that long ago. The county is still functionally segregated, and I didn’t learn most of this until adulthood.
Indeed, it's absurd to think that society stopped being racist the day Ruby entered that school. The kids whose parents taught them to hate her, are also 69 now. What did they teach their children, who are now the same age as me?
@QasimRashid glad to report my 7 and 9 year olds are both familiar with her, but appreciated your post and I just told them it was her birthday and reminded them how she isn't that old.
@QasimRashid I think you'll still hear a lot of boomers say things like, "we used to have neighborhood schools and they were great"...
What they're not saying (or maybe don't fully understand) is that those were the 'separate but equal' schools that were in no way 'equal', they were part of pervasive institutional racism that evolved into 'moving to the suburbs for the good schools'.
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