Thursday, February 28, 2008

Brick by Brick

I saw an interesting documentary on the desegregation battle in Yonkers New York tonight. It's easy to get lulled into the sense that the battles for civil rights were something fought and won long ago. Brick by Brick is a fresh reminder that these fights go on to this very day.

This fight started in the 1980s and the city council is dragging its feet on a Supreme Court ordered housing desegregation plan and undermining school integration to this day. But the truly insane thing to watch is how rabidly the anti-integration forces fought. The yelling mobs, a city council willing to bankrupt the city by keeping it in contempt of court over 200 low-income townhomes in a city of 200,000.

Truly a spectacle to behold and a striking reminder that high-minded national policies are very difficult to put into practice without engaged local-level support.

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