Too much opinion
I'm really disappointed in the recent article "Separate. Equal?" by Jeff Woods (Aug. 28).

I agree that this could well be one of the most pressing issues that Nashville has faced in decades, and it's one that we all must address and understand. My issue is in Woods' presentation of the "facts." The entire five-page article is a single long opinion piece that is blatantly slanted to Woods' perspective. Also, by labeling anyone who agrees with the rezoning proposal as a racist, he takes any option of open discussion off of the table.

I am a strong proponent of free speech and equal opportunity. Everyone has a right to say what they think and our children deserve the best education that we can deliver. But, to that end, we can't afford to sacrifice intelligent discussion on the altar of sensationalism.

I'm disappointed in the Scene, one of my favorite sources of real journalism in Nashville, not for publishing the article and bringing this issue to its cover page, but for allowing this article to be one-sided and presented as news.

I, for one, need to know a LOT more about this issue, and I guess I'll need to get it from some other source.

That old white magic
The author of ["Separate. Equal?"] seems to hold out no hope for the black school in the ghetto—he basically writes it off, while providing excuses for all the social pathologies of its residents which totally absolve them of responsibility. Has he finally abandoned all hope that government funding could improve things, or that black parents could change their ways and start getting involved in the school? It seems so.

Instead, the remedy is simply to send the surplus students off to a faraway school that still has a few whites, and hope that those whites will hang around long enough to perform some of their "white magic" on the blacks (although it has never happened in some 37 years). Of course they will not hang around, and soon the only whites that will be left, even there, will be those too poor to easily move. Rather than the blacks adapting to the presence of the black students, it will then be the few whites who will be adopting the ghetto behaviors of the majority blacks.

Meanwhile, what will happen to the Pearl-Cohn schools? I assume they are to remain 90-percent-plus black, and will get none of the benefits of "diversity" that are mentioned by the teacher. Continuing the status quo thus leads to only one conclusion that I can see: the final exit of white students from the county school system, and the takeover of the system by blacks. The whites will then have three choices: a forced move out of the county, enrollment in an expensive private school (while still paying public school taxes, though they can no longer send their children there safely), or home schooling.

Perhaps this is nothing but well-intentioned but misguided advocacy on behalf of black students by the author and many of those quoted, but by looking at the predictable consequences it looks like something quite different is going on. Something which a few other commenters have picked up on.

White kids—the real victims
What is it about a school full of white kids not being corrupted by the psychopathic street culture of the inner city that infuriates liberals so much?

The most glaring omission in ["Separate. Equal?"] is the utter lack of concern for the education and well-being of the white children. "Teachers take fourth-graders on a field trip to Nashville's jail to frighten them away from drugs and guns," says the writer. "But who's afraid? The kids are smiling and waving to their relatives behind bars."

What white parent in his right mind would want his children to attend school with children who aren't afraid of going to jail?

Summer school for racists
The venom and one-sidedness of the comments to ["Separate. Equal?"] only speak to me of how deeply racism still runs. One writer states that the problem is that blacks have lower IQs than whites. Please. Whoever wrote that needs to be tested and given remedial classes.

Historically, uninterrupted racism ensured the promise of educational segregation even after the Supreme Court ruling of Brown v. Board of Education, holding that racially segregated schools are inherently, and factually, not equal, and thus requiring integration. The result? White flight took off as affluent and middle-class white families moved out of urban areas and close-in suburbs to outer areas, rather than have their white children go to school with black children. Private schools and religious-based schools popped up overnight, with many whites in Nashville leaving the public school system altogether. Religion became a substitute language; there was no longer a need to talk about race and culture, one could just hide behind the language of religion. High-end private schools have little incentive to care about the community at large or persons less affluent than their own students' families; those kids are on a track of concern solely of self—how to make connections, get into the right school, make the most money. An occasional food drive can take care of any social conscience.

So many whites, as illustrated by the large preponderance of mean-spirited comments on this article, would rather engage in hate-mongering and self-righteous claims of "just being good parents," than admit to their complicity in the demographic trend, a trend developed with the intent to escape living with blacks, that has led to the concentrated poverty of many blacks. The same is true of the government's pathetic and racist policies (e.g., development of housing projects and other failed policies) that have only served to concentrate poverty, again, especially among blacks....

Too many whites, including the present school board, don't care about the faceless black children in the inner city. Accordingly, it is past time for Mayor Dean to make education of these children a priority and for him to take a leadership role to ensure that black children, trapped in extremely poor segregated neighborhoods, get a good education so they can have the same chances and choices that we all want for our children. Don't assume that these parents are so different from you, those of you who write these comments, in what they want for their children, and don't assume whites as a whole haven't benefited from the racism that puts these families in such severe social and economic distress.

Reading these comments makes me think that under the veneer of support for Barack Obama, that racism runs too deep in the U.S., including deeply in the South, for him to be elected. When the curtain to the voting booth closes, there are many whites who I fear will not vote for a black man for president. Perhaps my young black son, so proud of Sen. Obama, will never see a black president in his lifetime, just like every generation before him.

OK, so now bring on your self-righteousness, your hate, all of it. I'm reading.