Is there really any reason anymore to believe that just putting students of different races in the same school will magically wipe away the differences? Did we go to Community Schools in recognition that you actually have to DEAL with the underlying problems, not pretend that bussing students is a panacea? Integrating neighborhoods does nothing to erase poverty. And I don't really think the cultural habits of white students rub off through proximity. In fact, given the way that white students feel pressured to "be cool" by learning to pick up black culture (language, clothes, music), it is just as likely it will go the other way. So, I'm not buying this political axiom that integration is a necessary antecedent to academic equality. There are probably better reasons for integration, such as the elimination of housing discrimination. But education will still have its problems, even if that ever happens.
So don't try to label the education system a "failure" if all you did was work for integrated housing.
Potty Politics
You know, whether people like to acknowledge it or not, there are LOTS of unisex bathrooms around. They work perfectly well, because only one person can use them at a time, and if the person values privacy, they just lock the door. This is a very practical measure because it means that two women can have access to two bathrooms if they are avaiilable, rather than one bathroom remaining empty and one woman having to wait (which could be OK or could be VERY uncomfortable. It does raise the shocking possibility of a woman walking in just after a man exits. Maybe that is too much intimacy for these family council people. Maybe there are women who are appalled by putting their caboose on a seat just vacated by a man except....WAIT one second here. I just remembered something. Virtually ALL home bathrooms are "unisex". That makes this potty paranoia even more puzzling to me.
LSGI
This is like a case of acid reflux for the taxpayers of Minneapolis. Mr. Rybak, Council Members, THIS is what we want you NEVER to do again. I'm still not clear how the former gang did this to us, but LSGI is picking our empty pockets, and the CM's who approved it are collecting their rewards from the business community they pampered. I really could do without ANY reminders. I look at the flyover ramps on Lake and the other projects and wonder how many of these are ticking timebombs waiting to blow up in our faces.
________________________________________ Jim Mork Cooper Neighborhood Longfellow Community Minneapolis, MN We think. You'll like it here. And we're more fun than a barrel of Norwegians
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