Re Aussie schools and segregation, there are a couple of factors at play:
1. Recent migrants are wealthier than they were in the post-war period, and try to educate their kids in the best schools they can afford.
2. European migrants after the war flourished and are now part of every segment of Australian society.
3. Schools associated with churches and mosques bend over backwards to let kids from their congregation go to their schools, regardless of whether their parents can pay.
4. Most Melbourne suburbs are diverse, as to income and ethnicity, with only a few exceptions. There are certainly richer areas, but moderate and low income housing is threaded throughout them, partly through policy, and partly by private development of higher density housing.
5. For the truly white bread experience, go to a country town, but things are changing there too.
Not true. You're right to say that minorities make up a larger and larger share of the US population, but residential and school segregation are as bad today as they were in the 1950s, or worse. School integration peaked in about the late 80s or early 90s, and dropped off again when the feds looked away.
Was it the feds looking away? I think rather it was the whites moving away and/or signing their kids up for private and religious schools, plus political pressure on local school districts to fund the school choices being made by the anxious white parents.
It all boils down to deep-rooted prejudice and fear of the other.
Yes ...
Over time, actual life experience tends to ease one's anxieties ...
My public school in Lodi CA was incredibly diverse back in 1984, reflecting the community around it. It was also just MASSIVE, and had girls... of all shapes and sizes. For a lad from a small private Catholic school it was quite an eye-opener. My best mates were a skinny Indian kid who drove a light blue Pinto, a Pakistani kid whose Dad ran a local restaurant, where he worked, a Vietnamese man catching up on his education after half a life as a refugee, and a few other nerdy kids. He was on his way to Stanford. I was totally at sea with relating to the girls, mostly agog to be honest. Yet somehow, the person I am still in touch with is a woman whose house Mandy and I stayed at in 2016.
California was much more diverse than Melbourne, the most diverse city in Australia, at least in the 1980's. For us that has changed now, for the better. Lots of East Asian, African and South Asian migrants, and some too from the ME and Afghanistan. "We are one and we are many." I find it interesting that I distinguish ethnic groups from Asia easily, but I don't think I can do that with African immigrants. I don't know enough.
Sorry, got off track. I am not sure whether we have "white" schools, even by default. Maybe. But Catholic private schools are European plus others, and the same with state schools. I think wealth and poverty is the deciding factor in school attendance here, and that's not really racially defined.
My last two decades of parish ministry were mostly "interim" ... When a parish went vacant, the bishop sent me to take care of things until a new pastor could be called, and in about a third to half of situations I cleaned up one or another kind of *mess* ...
Sometimes I was in the inner city, sometimes a suburb, sometimes out in farm country ... Something I have noted throughout my parish work is that EVERY neighborhood everywhere is always a community in transition -- demographically, economically, socially ...
My longest term was twelve years out on the prairie in very rural SW Minnesota, a two point parish of (mostly) Swedish Lutherans ... For years, the people were increasingly desperate as young folks graduated and moved away to school and jobs ... The small towns and small churches struggled to stay viable and there were earnest prayers for PEOPLE to come to them ...
And they came ... Difficult jobs were available in poultry and hog slaughter plants, empty houses were inexpensive, and vacant store fronts were had for little $$$ ...
By the time we left after twelve years fully one fourth of the active members of one of my congregations were SE Asian immigrant refugees -- Buddhists, but too far away from their community, so they came to us to offer prayers, make sacrifices, and have their families guided in ways of mindfulness and peace ... Marty Luther would have been spinning in his grave had he known that we were communing unbaptized Buddhists ... But at that point hospitality overrides theology and pastoral care of souls was job #1 ...
We're all in this together ... for real ...
Baruch ha Shem Adonai Eloheinu ha Melech Olam ...
Not true. You're right to say that minorities make up a larger and larger share of the US population, but residential and school segregation are as bad today as they were in the 1950s, or worse. School integration peaked in about the late 80s or early 90s, and dropped off again when the feds looked away.
Was it the feds looking away? I think rather it was the whites moving away and/or signing their kids up for private and religious schools, plus political pressure on local school districts to fund the school choices being made by the anxious white parents.
It all boils down to deep-rooted prejudice and fear of the other.
Yes ...
Over time, actual life experience tends to ease one's anxieties ...
You'd think so, but the age profile of Trumpers and Brexiters suggests that prejudice has a long half-life.
Not true. You're right to say that minorities make up a larger and larger share of the US population, but residential and school segregation are as bad today as they were in the 1950s, or worse. School integration peaked in about the late 80s or early 90s, and dropped off again when the feds looked away.
Was it the feds looking away? I think rather it was the whites moving away and/or signing their kids up for private and religious schools, plus political pressure on local school districts to fund the school choices being made by the anxious white parents.
It all boils down to deep-rooted prejudice and fear of the other.
Yes ...
Over time, actual life experience tends to ease one's anxieties ...
You'd think so, but the age profile of Trumpers and Brexiters suggests that prejudice has a long half-life.
Cognitive dissonance happens now and then if you're paying attention, and ways of dealing with that experience vary from person to person ...
... and of course generalities are true only generally, and exceptions commonly prove a rule ...
... and, yes, perversity leads some people to embrace their own disadvantage or even doom ...
To the point about integrated schools, one of the things I have always liked about our community is the cosmopolitan nature of the school system. Because we are a university town, we have international faculty and students, many of whom have brought their families to the community. Those families have kids who need to be schooled. Consequently, our kids would have peers from all over the world. Those kids would bring their culture and perspectives into the mix of our educational system. There are two smaller private schools but to my knowledge, they have been just integrated as the public school system.
To Fr Teilhard's point about radical hospitality, my congregation has developed a supportive relationship with the Islamic Prayer Center just three blocks from our church. It started shortly after 9-11 when the Center was targetted by some right-wing radicals. The local clergy association came out in support of the center and our congregation along with others started having fellowship experiences with them (like celebrating Eid--btw, there are a number of lesser Eids). It continued when Lybia cut off its support of the Lybian students who were at the university. We gave them food and housing assistance while the university continued their tuition. Recently, when the Center's building was tagged by a lone vandal some of the people from our congregation went over there to help clean up the graffiti.
To the point about integrated schools, one of the things I have always liked about our community is the cosmopolitan nature of the school system. Because we are a university town, we have international faculty and students, many of whom have brought their families to the community. Those families have kids who need to be schooled. Consequently, our kids would have peers from all over the world. Those kids would bring their culture and perspectives into the mix of our educational system. There are two smaller private schools but to my knowledge, they have been just integrated as the public school system.
To Fr Teilhard's point about radical hospitality, my congregation has developed a supportive relationship with the Islamic Prayer Center just three blocks from our church. It started shortly after 9-11 when the Center was targetted by some right-wing radicals. The local clergy association came out in support of the center and our congregation along with others started having fellowship experiences with them (like celebrating Eid--btw, there are a number of lesser Eids). It continued when Lybia cut off its support of the Lybian students who were at the university. We gave them food and housing assistance while the university continued their tuition. Recently, when the Center's building was tagged by a lone vandal some of the people from our congregation went over there to help clean up the graffiti.
That sounds like the old "we have lots of diversity except for black people and poor people" problem. At historically white universities, why are there so many more professors who moved here from foreign countries, than African-American professors? Also, don't get too complacent about good schools in college towns.
The workforce in academia (and hence the population of most small college towns) is incredibly segregated by class, race, and gender. Try asking yourself why it's so much easier for white academics to form friendships and find commonality with middle-class/wealthy people from other countries, than with working-class people from their own city.
Gramps, you are in the PNW which is historically hostile to black residents - how many American-born black families live in your school district at all?
By the way, I grew up a faculty brat in Chapel Hill - one of the towns featured in the above Atlantic article - so I do know the territory.
Not true. You're right to say that minorities make up a larger and larger share of the US population, but residential and school segregation are as bad today as they were in the 1950s, or worse. School integration peaked in about the late 80s or early 90s, and dropped off again when the feds looked away.
Was it the feds looking away? I think rather it was the whites moving away and/or signing their kids up for private and religious schools, plus political pressure on local school districts to fund the school choices being made by the anxious white parents.
It all boils down to deep-rooted prejudice and fear of the other.
Actually if you look at points 2 and 3 in the first article I posted, it's pretty clear that school districts being released from court oversight played a big part in re-segregating formerly integrated schools. And of course, thanks to the Milliken decision in the 1970s, northern school systems never integrated in the first place.
That sounds like the old "we have lots of diversity except for black people and poor people" problem. At historically white universities, why are there so many more professors who moved here from foreign countries, than African-American professors? Also, don't get too complacent about good schools in college towns.
The workforce in academia (and hence the population of most small college towns) is incredibly segregated by class, race, and gender. Try asking yourself why it's so much easier for white academics to form friendships and find commonality with middle-class/wealthy people from other countries, than with working-class people from their own city.
Gramps, you are in the PNW which is historically hostile to black residents - how many American-born black families live in your school district at all?
By the way, I grew up a faculty brat in Chapel Hill - one of the towns featured in the above Atlantic article - so I do know the territory.
Our school district reports there are 1,742 (71.7%) Whites, 231 (9.5%) Asians/Pacific Islanders, 226 (9.3%) Asians, 225 (9.3%) Hispanics, 154 (6.3%) people with two or more races, 62 (2.6%) Blacks, 14 (0.6%) American Indians/Alaskan Natives and 5 (0.2%) Pacific Islanders. According to the census bureau, there are 1,038 African Americans (2018) in my community compared to 450 and 305 respectively in communities of similar size in the congressional district
Please do not stereotype my community. We are far different from Chapel Hill. I can tell you as far as academia is concerned, though, the number of chairs, administrative officers we have are proportionate to our faculty numbers. We recently lost a well-liked president of the university to cancer who was African American.
I don’t think your community was being stereotyped. I think you were being asked questions designed to test or explore possible underlying assumptions, which is quite reasonable.
We are far different from Chapel Hill.
How do you know what Chapel Hill—which is in North Carolina, not South Carolina— is like?
FWIW, I do know Chapel Hill. I recognize Antisocial Alto’s description of places like it. And I know lots of people in Chapel Hill, both within the University and outside it, who would describe the community and its schools very much as you have described your community and its schools.
I don’t think your community was being stereotyped. I think you were being asked questions designed to test or explore possible underlying assumptions, which is quite reasonable.
We are far different from Chapel Hill.
How do you know what Chapel Hill—which is in North Carolina, not South Carolina— is like?
FWIW, I do know Chapel Hill. I recognize Antisocial Alto’s description of places like it. And I know lots of people in Chapel Hill, both within the University and outside it, who would describe the community and its schools very much as you have described your community and its schools.
People often see what they want to see.
Sorry about the mislocation of Chapel Hill, I had edited it out while you were entering your reply.
As far as my knowledge of Chapel Hill is concerned, I had a good friend who was a faculty member there and we visited them once. He is now retired. My daughter also considered becoming a student there, which I would have supported (my motto: I don't care where you go to school as long as it is 500 miles from home.)
And I do believe Antisocial Alto made a stereotypical reference to the Pacific Northwest and made the assumption my community is no different.
As far as my knowledge of Chapel Hill is concerned, I had a good friend who was a faculty member there and we visited them once. He is now retired. My daughter also considered becoming a student there, which I would have supported (my motto: I don't care where you go to school as long as it is 500 miles from home.)
So, little if anything from direct, personal experience upon which to assert that where you live is “far different.”
That sounds like the old "we have lots of diversity except for black people and poor people" problem. At historically white universities, why are there so many more professors who moved here from foreign countries, than African-American professors? Also, don't get too complacent about good schools in college towns.
The workforce in academia (and hence the population of most small college towns) is incredibly segregated by class, race, and gender. Try asking yourself why it's so much easier for white academics to form friendships and find commonality with middle-class/wealthy people from other countries, than with working-class people from their own city.
Gramps, you are in the PNW which is historically hostile to black residents - how many American-born black families live in your school district at all?
By the way, I grew up a faculty brat in Chapel Hill - one of the towns featured in the above Atlantic article - so I do know the territory.
Our school district reports there are 1,742 (71.7%) Whites, 231 (9.5%) Asians/Pacific Islanders, 226 (9.3%) Asians, 225 (9.3%) Hispanics, 154 (6.3%) people with two or more races, 62 (2.6%) Blacks, 14 (0.6%) American Indians/Alaskan Natives and 5 (0.2%) Pacific Islanders. According to the census bureau, there are 1,038 African Americans (2018) in my community compared to 450 and 305 respectively in communities of similar size in the congressional district
Please do not stereotype my community. We are far different from Chapel Hill. I can tell you as far as academia is concerned, though, the number of chairs, administrative officers we have are proportionate to our faculty numbers. We recently lost a well-liked president of the university to cancer who was African American.
Bizarrely, racial-ethnic stereotypes cut in many directions, indicating that this is a human problem, not just a pernicious invention of a "white"-Euro-centric-Imperialist-Capitalist power structure ...
As far as my knowledge of Chapel Hill is concerned, I had a good friend who was a faculty member there and we visited them once. He is now retired. My daughter also considered becoming a student there, which I would have supported (my motto: I don't care where you go to school as long as it is 500 miles from home.)
So, little if anything from direct, personal experience upon which to assert that where you live is “far different.”
Why is it you chose to triangulate a discussion between Antisocial Alto and myself? I know very little about Chapel Hill just as AA knows very little about my university--or, for that matter--you.
Okay, we'll assume for the sake of discussion that Gramps' town is far different from Chapel Hill (for one thing, it appears to have about 18 percent fewer black residents). But is it also far different from Berkeley and Ann Arbor? They have similar problems with "excellent" public school systems that produce a tremendous achievement gap.
Okay, we'll assume for the sake of discussion that Gramps' town is far different from Chapel Hill (for one thing, it appears to have about 18 percent fewer black residents). But is it also far different from Berkeley and Ann Arbor? They have similar problems with "excellent" public school systems that produce a tremendous achievement gap.
Different from Minneapolis, Minnesota, too, I'm sure ..
So, the run-off takes place the day before Congress is to confirm the vote in the Electoral College. Will the new Georgia senators be able to participate in the spectacle, erm, deliberations? Will their swearing-in be accelerated?
So, the run-off takes place the day before Congress is to confirm the vote in the Electoral College. Will the new Georgia senators be able to participate in the spectacle, erm, deliberations? Will their swearing-in be accelerated?
I doubt that the ballots will be fully tabulated by Wednesday ...
So, the run-off takes place the day before Congress is to confirm the vote in the Electoral College. Will the new Georgia senators be able to participate in the spectacle, erm, deliberations? Will their swearing-in be accelerated?
No. There’s simply no way it can happen that quickly.
California Secretary of State Alex Padilla (D), who Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) named as Vice President-elect Kamala Harris' replacement, is set to assume the seat after Harris resigns following the Jan. 20 inauguration.
{snip}
A Democratic victory in both seats would result in a 50-50 split in the chamber, with tie votes broken by Harris.
Can we just briefly celebrate the other participant in that phone conversation, a Georgia Republican demonstrating considerable integrity in the face of pressure?
Can we just briefly celebrate the other participant in that phone conversation, a Georgia Republican demonstrating considerable integrity in the face of pressure?
Yes indeed. I think back to watching The West Wing and plot lines where even senators would avoid talking to the President because they knew he would ask them to do something they didn't want to and they didn't feel they could say no. I think back and I shudder to think what may have gone on in the last four years with that mindset in place, and I am deeply relieved that there are Republican officials who retain some vestige of integrity and respect for the electoral process and the rule of law.
Can we just briefly celebrate the other participant in that phone conversation, a Georgia Republican demonstrating considerable integrity in the face of pressure?
Yes, but let's not discount the fact that they are also demonstrating considerable ass-covering. This isn't just adopting the moral high ground in my view.
Amid widespread outrage including calls for a second impeachment, Bob Bauer, a senior Biden adviser, said: “We now have irrefutable proof of a president pressuring and threatening an official of his own party to get him to rescind a state’s lawful, certified vote count and fabricate another in its place.”
Outrage? Of course.
Trump won’t care, he feeds off outrage. It’s the attention he craves. He’ll become ever more outrageous as the spotlight inevitably moves away from him.
So, the run-off takes place the day before Congress is to confirm the vote in the Electoral College. Will the new Georgia senators be able to participate in the spectacle, erm, deliberations? Will their swearing-in be accelerated?
I doubt that the ballots will be fully tabulated by Wednesday ...
The technical answer is "yes", provided the election is so lopsided a victory as to leave no doubt as to the outcome. As @Fr Teilhard points out the realistic answer is "no", they'll likely still be counting votes and nothing will be certified by the proper authorities yet. Simplifying things is that mail-in ballots in Georgia must be received no later than 7:00 pm on Election Day, so there isn't the issue of late arriving mail-in ballots.
That sounds like the old "we have lots of diversity except for black people and poor people" problem. At historically white universities, why are there so many more professors who moved here from foreign countries, than African-American professors?
Acadaemia is fairly international. You find academics from all over the world in most countries (well, most countries with some good universities). That's a good thing. I still remember the look on the face of one lecturer from Russia, in my UK university, at the laughter that echoed around the room when the top text on his list of recommended texts was in German. (Basically, he said "this is the best text I know on the topic. It's in German. For those of you who don't read German, these two in English are quite good". The assembled class of Brits was contemptuous of the idea that anyone might possibly read a textbook in German. I don't think my tourist-level German would have been up to reading that textbook, but I was rather ashamed of my classmates' contemptuous laughter.)
This kind of international diversity is a good thing, but it doesn't replace the domestic diversity of also having a diverse representation of your local population.
Try asking yourself why it's so much easier for white academics to form friendships and find commonality with middle-class/wealthy people from other countries, than with working-class people from their own city.
Commonality of interest?
I'm the white academic from another country, living in the US. I like interesting people, by which I mean people who have some kind of interesting geeky focused knowledge that I find interesting. People who have the time and money available to develop that kind of interest are usually economically comfortable - usually not "rich", but usually pretty secure. It doesn't have to be an academic interest - some of my local friends carve wood with hand tools, or brew up chemicals in the garage to make various kinds of old-fashioned photograph (tintypes etc.) But they all have expertise in something that makes for an interesting conversation.
I've no interest in vapid socialites, or sports, so if you're the kind of person whose interests revolve around the lives of celebrities, the local sports team, and attending parties, then we probably have nothing in common.
I like my current neighbours. They're nice people, we shovel each other's driveways in the winter, feed each other's cats when we're away, and chat from time to time. But we have absolutely nothing in common, beyond living in adjacent houses. We don't enjoy the things they like, and they don't enjoy the things that we like. So we're not friends, and don't spend any time together.
That sounds like the old "we have lots of diversity except for black people and poor people" problem. At historically white universities, why are there so many more professors who moved here from foreign countries, than African-American professors?
Acadaemia is fairly international. You find academics from all over the world in most countries (well, most countries with some good universities). That's a good thing. I still remember the look on the face of one lecturer from Russia, in my UK university, at the laughter that echoed around the room when the top text on his list of recommended texts was in German. (Basically, he said "this is the best text I know on the topic. It's in German. For those of you who don't read German, these two in English are quite good". The assembled class of Brits was contemptuous of the idea that anyone might possibly read a textbook in German. I don't think my tourist-level German would have been up to reading that textbook, but I was rather ashamed of my classmates' contemptuous laughter.)
My university department (physics) had a lot of academics from the former communist countries. I assume this was because they were both skilled and comparatively cheap. This did lead to a conversation where a class was complaining about how difficult the Particle Physics II course was only to have the Georgian lecturer retort along the lines of "how do you think I feel, I learned it all in a different alphabet". I was also puzzled for a time about what mathematical objects mattresses might be. I did have a fellow student who made use of at least one textbook written in German, but as he was studying group theory that wasn't quite the challenge it would have been if he'd been studying, say, psychology.
I remember when I was in college one of my professors of history came in and read an article he had found to us. We were furiously taking notes. When he was done, he told us he would put it on reserve in the library, but then he said "Of course, it is in Russian." I think there were only two in class that were fluent in Russian,
In grad school (history and philosophy) there were almost always (for my courses) readings in English, French, German, Russian, and Spanish. Certainly we weren't expected to have a reading knowledge of all the languages (I always wondered how the comp lit people could possibly manage!), but we were expected to have one other than English that we knew well enough to get through an article, if not a full book, for the following week's session. One professor, for a third year undergrad course in Reformation history, told us in the first session that if we couldn't read german we were wasting out time. It was his way culling the herd. (Notoriously not a people person.)
In grad school (history and philosophy) there were almost always (for my courses) readings in English, French, German, Russian, and Spanish. Certainly we weren't expected to have a reading knowledge of all the languages (I always wondered how the comp lit people could possibly manage!), but we were expected to have one other than English that we knew well enough to get through an article, if not a full book, for the following week's session. One professor, for a third year undergrad course in Reformation history, told us in the first session that if we couldn't read german we were wasting out time. It was his way culling the herd. (Notoriously not a people person.)
At the time, my languages were German, Greek, and Hebrew. I could wade into Latin a bit if I had to. Unfortunately, if you don't use the languages you lose them. I donated my Biblica Hebraica to a seminary in Africa this summer. I can still work through the Novum Testamentum, and I was able to refresh my German when I was over there a couple of years ago.
Since I grew up in rural Southern Idaho I did pick up Spanish too.
So, can this fascist and his black shirts be stopped from paralysing, infecting and inflaming America? At all? He cannot be shut up. He makes Nixon look saintly. How much more damage does he have to do before Pence invokes the 25th? And on what basis? If Trump's cabinet ignore him he will fire them. All. Then what? America's already objectively flawed democracy is getting even more shamefully, and precipitously, breath holdingly, worse.
Former Secretary of State, Colin Powell, was just on CNN (with Wolf Blitzer) - talking like an adult, and also thanking and praising the media for their work.
Sighs of relief. Powell is VERY outspoken about the incumbent, and asking why nobody was standing up to him in Congress, which, as he says, is not what Congress is for - they're needed for the balance of powers.
Comments
Re Aussie schools and segregation, there are a couple of factors at play:
1. Recent migrants are wealthier than they were in the post-war period, and try to educate their kids in the best schools they can afford.
2. European migrants after the war flourished and are now part of every segment of Australian society.
3. Schools associated with churches and mosques bend over backwards to let kids from their congregation go to their schools, regardless of whether their parents can pay.
4. Most Melbourne suburbs are diverse, as to income and ethnicity, with only a few exceptions. There are certainly richer areas, but moderate and low income housing is threaded throughout them, partly through policy, and partly by private development of higher density housing.
5. For the truly white bread experience, go to a country town, but things are changing there too.
Yes ...
Over time, actual life experience tends to ease one's anxieties ...
My last two decades of parish ministry were mostly "interim" ... When a parish went vacant, the bishop sent me to take care of things until a new pastor could be called, and in about a third to half of situations I cleaned up one or another kind of *mess* ...
Sometimes I was in the inner city, sometimes a suburb, sometimes out in farm country ... Something I have noted throughout my parish work is that EVERY neighborhood everywhere is always a community in transition -- demographically, economically, socially ...
My longest term was twelve years out on the prairie in very rural SW Minnesota, a two point parish of (mostly) Swedish Lutherans ... For years, the people were increasingly desperate as young folks graduated and moved away to school and jobs ... The small towns and small churches struggled to stay viable and there were earnest prayers for PEOPLE to come to them ...
And they came ... Difficult jobs were available in poultry and hog slaughter plants, empty houses were inexpensive, and vacant store fronts were had for little $$$ ...
By the time we left after twelve years fully one fourth of the active members of one of my congregations were SE Asian immigrant refugees -- Buddhists, but too far away from their community, so they came to us to offer prayers, make sacrifices, and have their families guided in ways of mindfulness and peace ... Marty Luther would have been spinning in his grave had he known that we were communing unbaptized Buddhists ... But at that point hospitality overrides theology and pastoral care of souls was job #1 ...
We're all in this together ... for real ...
Baruch ha Shem Adonai Eloheinu ha Melech Olam ...
You'd think so, but the age profile of Trumpers and Brexiters suggests that prejudice has a long half-life.
Cognitive dissonance happens now and then if you're paying attention, and ways of dealing with that experience vary from person to person ...
... and of course generalities are true only generally, and exceptions commonly prove a rule ...
... and, yes, perversity leads some people to embrace their own disadvantage or even doom ...
To Fr Teilhard's point about radical hospitality, my congregation has developed a supportive relationship with the Islamic Prayer Center just three blocks from our church. It started shortly after 9-11 when the Center was targetted by some right-wing radicals. The local clergy association came out in support of the center and our congregation along with others started having fellowship experiences with them (like celebrating Eid--btw, there are a number of lesser Eids). It continued when Lybia cut off its support of the Lybian students who were at the university. We gave them food and housing assistance while the university continued their tuition. Recently, when the Center's building was tagged by a lone vandal some of the people from our congregation went over there to help clean up the graffiti.
Yes
The workforce in academia (and hence the population of most small college towns) is incredibly segregated by class, race, and gender. Try asking yourself why it's so much easier for white academics to form friendships and find commonality with middle-class/wealthy people from other countries, than with working-class people from their own city.
Gramps, you are in the PNW which is historically hostile to black residents - how many American-born black families live in your school district at all?
By the way, I grew up a faculty brat in Chapel Hill - one of the towns featured in the above Atlantic article - so I do know the territory.
Actually if you look at points 2 and 3 in the first article I posted, it's pretty clear that school districts being released from court oversight played a big part in re-segregating formerly integrated schools. And of course, thanks to the Milliken decision in the 1970s, northern school systems never integrated in the first place.
Our school district reports there are 1,742 (71.7%) Whites, 231 (9.5%) Asians/Pacific Islanders, 226 (9.3%) Asians, 225 (9.3%) Hispanics, 154 (6.3%) people with two or more races, 62 (2.6%) Blacks, 14 (0.6%) American Indians/Alaskan Natives and 5 (0.2%) Pacific Islanders. According to the census bureau, there are 1,038 African Americans (2018) in my community compared to 450 and 305 respectively in communities of similar size in the congressional district
Please do not stereotype my community. We are far different from Chapel Hill. I can tell you as far as academia is concerned, though, the number of chairs, administrative officers we have are proportionate to our faculty numbers. We recently lost a well-liked president of the university to cancer who was African American.
How do you know what Chapel Hill—which is in North Carolina, not South Carolina— is like?
FWIW, I do know Chapel Hill. I recognize Antisocial Alto’s description of places like it. And I know lots of people in Chapel Hill, both within the University and outside it, who would describe the community and its schools very much as you have described your community and its schools.
People often see what they want to see.
Sorry about the mislocation of Chapel Hill, I had edited it out while you were entering your reply.
As far as my knowledge of Chapel Hill is concerned, I had a good friend who was a faculty member there and we visited them once. He is now retired. My daughter also considered becoming a student there, which I would have supported (my motto: I don't care where you go to school as long as it is 500 miles from home.)
And I do believe Antisocial Alto made a stereotypical reference to the Pacific Northwest and made the assumption my community is no different.
Bizarrely, racial-ethnic stereotypes cut in many directions, indicating that this is a human problem, not just a pernicious invention of a "white"-Euro-centric-Imperialist-Capitalist power structure ...
Why is it you chose to triangulate a discussion between Antisocial Alto and myself? I know very little about Chapel Hill just as AA knows very little about my university--or, for that matter--you.
Different from Minneapolis, Minnesota, too, I'm sure ..
If he made such a call to the Georgia SoS, has he made similar threatening calls to the SoSs of OTHER states where Biden won?
Because overturning Georgia's result is pointless without doing the same thing in other states.
I would like to see sworn affidavits from all the affected SoSs confirming whether or not they have had similar conversations with Trump.
I think he is fixated on Georgia -- today -- because of the run-off election on Tuesday ...
I doubt that the ballots will be fully tabulated by Wednesday ...
Yes indeed. I think back to watching The West Wing and plot lines where even senators would avoid talking to the President because they knew he would ask them to do something they didn't want to and they didn't feel they could say no. I think back and I shudder to think what may have gone on in the last four years with that mindset in place, and I am deeply relieved that there are Republican officials who retain some vestige of integrity and respect for the electoral process and the rule of law.
Yes, but let's not discount the fact that they are also demonstrating considerable ass-covering. This isn't just adopting the moral high ground in my view.
Outrage? Of course.
Trump won’t care, he feeds off outrage. It’s the attention he craves. He’ll become ever more outrageous as the spotlight inevitably moves away from him.
The technical answer is "yes", provided the election is so lopsided a victory as to leave no doubt as to the outcome. As @Fr Teilhard points out the realistic answer is "no", they'll likely still be counting votes and nothing will be certified by the proper authorities yet. Simplifying things is that mail-in ballots in Georgia must be received no later than 7:00 pm on Election Day, so there isn't the issue of late arriving mail-in ballots.
Acadaemia is fairly international. You find academics from all over the world in most countries (well, most countries with some good universities). That's a good thing. I still remember the look on the face of one lecturer from Russia, in my UK university, at the laughter that echoed around the room when the top text on his list of recommended texts was in German. (Basically, he said "this is the best text I know on the topic. It's in German. For those of you who don't read German, these two in English are quite good". The assembled class of Brits was contemptuous of the idea that anyone might possibly read a textbook in German. I don't think my tourist-level German would have been up to reading that textbook, but I was rather ashamed of my classmates' contemptuous laughter.)
This kind of international diversity is a good thing, but it doesn't replace the domestic diversity of also having a diverse representation of your local population.
Commonality of interest?
I'm the white academic from another country, living in the US. I like interesting people, by which I mean people who have some kind of interesting geeky focused knowledge that I find interesting. People who have the time and money available to develop that kind of interest are usually economically comfortable - usually not "rich", but usually pretty secure. It doesn't have to be an academic interest - some of my local friends carve wood with hand tools, or brew up chemicals in the garage to make various kinds of old-fashioned photograph (tintypes etc.) But they all have expertise in something that makes for an interesting conversation.
I've no interest in vapid socialites, or sports, so if you're the kind of person whose interests revolve around the lives of celebrities, the local sports team, and attending parties, then we probably have nothing in common.
I like my current neighbours. They're nice people, we shovel each other's driveways in the winter, feed each other's cats when we're away, and chat from time to time. But we have absolutely nothing in common, beyond living in adjacent houses. We don't enjoy the things they like, and they don't enjoy the things that we like. So we're not friends, and don't spend any time together.
My university department (physics) had a lot of academics from the former communist countries. I assume this was because they were both skilled and comparatively cheap. This did lead to a conversation where a class was complaining about how difficult the Particle Physics II course was only to have the Georgian lecturer retort along the lines of "how do you think I feel, I learned it all in a different alphabet". I was also puzzled for a time about what mathematical objects mattresses might be. I did have a fellow student who made use of at least one textbook written in German, but as he was studying group theory that wasn't quite the challenge it would have been if he'd been studying, say, psychology.
"Mattesses" = "matrices"?
Well, given books like "The Mathematical Magpie", "The Mathematical Mattress" might do well. The form of the springs; planes; etc.
Yep.
Less linguistic and more plain bizarre was the same lecturer's analogy of perturbation theory to a woman with hairy breasts.
At the time, my languages were German, Greek, and Hebrew. I could wade into Latin a bit if I had to. Unfortunately, if you don't use the languages you lose them. I donated my Biblica Hebraica to a seminary in Africa this summer. I can still work through the Novum Testamentum, and I was able to refresh my German when I was over there a couple of years ago.
Since I grew up in rural Southern Idaho I did pick up Spanish too.
Yep
He has to be arrested, charged, tried and convicted. For what?
That's probably one case Trump can win.
Sighs of relief. Powell is VERY outspoken about the incumbent, and asking why nobody was standing up to him in Congress, which, as he says, is not what Congress is for - they're needed for the balance of powers.