Yesterday I gave my presentation (along with a classmate) on the San Francisco school desegregation program, its tie-in to american segregation, desegregation, and resegregation. My professor thought it was good. Certainly a boost to the ego. As has everyone who’s talked to me about it. I’ve developed a new metric for whether one has properly prepared for a presentation as well. If you can think of a few different threads you didn’t pursue because you didn’t have time, then you’ve preparedd adequately.
In particular the ones that I didn’t get into were related to residential preferences, and whether segregated minorities are suffering under an imposed situation or whether segregation is the result of their preferences as well. And if so, what that implies about desegregation. I think it is, and it suggests to me that explicit desegregation programs works on something tangentially related to the problem, and exacerbates the problems of white flight.
It adds a (necessary) dimension of complexity to the problem. Desegregation will never be enough. And, to my mind, it will never be a huge benefit for the cost. The resources that would be applied to such a program can be better applied elsewhere.