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43 8 Toto, I Have a Feeling We are Still in Kansas Sharon E. Rush Brown v. Board of Education shapes the lives of everyone in this country, even though most people are not aware of the details of the decision. In fact, the lay understanding of Brown probably is limited to knowing that it ended de jure segregation in public schools. While the importance of this cannot be overstated , white society’s enduring attachment to Brown is not so much its holding as what the case has come to symbolize: the end of racism in the United States. I suggest this because most whites today believe in racial equality and think racism is an extreme form of behavior practiced by individuals. In its grossest form, of course, racism is slavery. When we abolished slavery, however , we entered into the period of de jure segregation, which today’s whites also recognize as racism. Today’s whites probably also agree that the de facto segregation that persisted as some states resisted integration also was racist. But many whites think all those racist practices were years ago. Today’s racists, then, are KKK members or whites who use racial epithets. They are not white people of goodwill, most of whom sincerely think that racism all but ended with Brown. Three aspects of my life give me insights into Brown that cause me to disagree with most white folks about its meaning. My family roots are in Lomax, Alabama, where my extended family still is clustered around what was once my grandparents’ home just off the main two-lane highway between Montgomery and Birmingham. The seeds for fighting racism were planted at an early age. More influential, however, are the facts that I am the white mother of a black daughter and a professor of constitutional law specializing in racial equality issues. My background, my love for my daughter, and my research on race enable me to understand racism in ways I otherwise would not. Because my deeper understanding of racism comes from my experiences straddling the color line, perhaps my insights can help other whites gain a deeper understanding of their own limited views of racism. 44 De Jure States and the District of Columbia My Earliest Memories about race When I attended first grade in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1958, I had no idea that segregation was unlawful. But I knew all too well that segregation was white society’s preferred social system. By the age of six, I had been taught that blacks and whites should stay far away from each other, because blacks were not really human beings. I do not remember being told this in so many words, but I got the message just about everywhere I went. White/Colored signs still hung over drinking fountains; I was not allowed to play with black children across the railroad tracks; some of my relatives would openly deride blacks; I was not allowed to pet a dog if its owner was black. By second grade, my family had moved to upstate New york. I cannot remember what the so-called racial climate was in Ithaca then, and certainly the South did not have exclusive claims to racism, but my summer visits to Alabama brought mixed emotions. I liked going on vacation, but I dreaded the atmosphere of racism that I knew would sweep over me as we pulled into my grandmother’s driveway. Children made up games to describe blacks in dehumanizing ways. It made me ashamed and I hid under the front porch to avoid participating. Like the rural poverty and Alabama summer heat, racism had its own oppressive heaviness that weighed me down. My parents played a huge role in teaching me that racism is wrong. What I did not understand as a little girl is why other whites did not know that. Over the years, of course, I have learned that whites have always known racism is wrong, but, to this day, white society is unwilling to assume responsibility for the havoc it has wreaked on the souls of blacks, as W. E. B. DuBois described it. The older Brown gets, the more unwilling white society is to explore our history and its connection to modern racism and inequality. Brown has become the turning point for racial equality and provides proof that white society no longer regards blacks as less than human. “The human race is the only race” is a common mantra in white society. My research...

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