Watching the video we saw in class on Thursday really got me thinking. I was simply horrified and maybe amazed at the fact that the biggest dissent for integrating the schools in New Jersey (right?) came from the parents of students. And these parents certainly acted on it! They were simply furious and they committed acts of violence against the students being bussed in.....against children! How does that happen? How can that be rationalized in someone's head? Who can say that that's ok?

Then i began to think. What if my school system had decided to implement busing? What if they had decided that I should go to a school in a different part of the county? How would my parents react? Well, I really don't think there would be any rock throwing or cursing or yelling as the buses drive by, but I don't think they'd be excited. I think the first instinct of a parent (or of good parents anyways) will always be for the safety of their child/children. Maybe the thought of them being sent so far away is scary to some parents. Maybe it's just the anger of the inconvenience (which I can honestly say would probably be the case in my family with 4 children....going to school a long distance from home would be hard on my mom!). My parents wouldn't be bothered by the fact that I'd be in a more diverse school. They might be bothered that I would be in an unfamiliar part of town that is sometimes considered unsafe. I just don't know what the reaction would be. I don't know what my reaction would be!

I'm not in any way justifying the things that some of those parents and demonstraters did in the 70s. I hate that people would even consider those things. None of the students deserved that. And I'm not trying to say that there is even a reason to be so angry over the issue of busing and school integration. Diversity is such a powerful thing in the learning community! I'm just saying that we might see some anger or even aggression from a select few people that has been misinterpreted as severe racism. I realize that the time in our nation's history when this film was made, most of the people who acted so horribly probably were acting out from racism. I just wanted to bring up the fact that i don't think everyone would react just wonderfully and completely peacefully to the idea of busing now (although, as we found out in class, it is going on now in our state).

anybody else?

I thought the same thing, Julie. If the government forced my children to be bussed to the other side of town when there's a school right across the street, I certainly wouldn't be happy about it. The actions of the parents in this situation were horribly wrong and should not have happened; they were angry because of the racial integration, not just the bussing. But I can't say that I wouldn't be upset if my kids had to go to school in a district different from my home.

I agree as well. I probably would be upset if there was a school across the street and my kids were bussed really far away.... but thats not what my problem was with the parents. They were justified in being upset about the bussing situation, i was disgusted with the way they processed and handled those feelings.

Parents conjure up reasons to fit their opinion as if every government policy is irrational and insurmountable. Perhaps some busing policies are extreme but the school boards that I grew up in had an appeals process for parents who provided reasons not to bus their child.

My mother, for example, forbid me to go to the middle school that all my teacher's recommended because it was next to "the projects". This fits well for the child safety defense mentioned above but the irony was that one of the families we went to church with lived close to that school. I don't recall that family being robbed or whatever. Mom's reasons satisfied my father so I wound up at the local middle school; one that I was not tracked or grouped for. Fortunately North Carolina's first year-round middle school opened up the following year around the corner from our house and it matched the original recommendation of my elementary teachers, ... and Mom was satisfied because it was in a "better" neighborhood -- our neighborhood.