DEHUMANIZING NATIVE AMERICANS

DEHUMANIZING NATIVE AMERICANS

The names Americans use for many American Indian tribes are derogatory. European Americans often learned what to call one tribe from a neighboring rival tribe. Sometimes whites simply developed their own contemptuous names for groups of Native people. Markers in Arizona are full of these wrong names. Some Native groups have responded to this confusion by accepting their new name even if it originally had negative connotations. Others are mounting determined efforts to be known by the name they call themselves. Arizona offers examples of both.

NAVAJO INDIANS: BARBONCITO - CHIEF OF THE NAVAJO TRIBE IN NEW MEXICO

By far the largest and most populous Indian reservation in the United States is the Navajo reservation, which occupies all of northeastern Arizona and extends into Utah and New Mexico. Navajo is the name given to these once nomadic people by the already-settled Tewa Pueblo Indians. 1 It may mean "thieves" or "takers from the fields." The Navajos came to the Southwest millennia after the Tewas and call themselves Dine, sometimes spelled Dineh, which means "we the people." 2 Most Native American groups call themselves by names that mean "we the people." Like most societies they were ethnocentric - seeing their own culture as the yardstick of sound human behavior - and these names reflect that certainty.

Tewa Pueblo Indian

The name of another famous Arizona tribe, Apaches, means "enemies." The Zunis named them that. Related linguistically to the Navajos, Apaches too call themselves Dine. In southern Arizona, Papagos means "bean eaters," a name given by the nearby Pimas. Papagos call themselves Tohono O'Otam, or "desert people." Pimas, another southern Arizona tribe, refer to themselves as Ahkeemult O'odham or "river people." "Pima" actually means "I don't know," apparently their reply when asked their name in Spanish by an early explorer!

"Tohono O'odham Woman" circa 1905

Americans have learned to call the people who built the ancient cliff dwellings at Canyon de Chelly in Arizona "the Anasazi." Anasazi is a Navajo word meaning "ancient enemies." Since the Anasazis have "vanished" according to anthropologists, we cannot now ask them what they called themselves. In reality the Anasazi didn't "vanish" but merged into the various pueblo peoples whose descendants still live in Arizona and New Mexico. Most Pueblo Indians prefer to call the Anasazi "ancestral Puebloans" and still know which pueblo includes descendants from which "Anasazi" site.

Inuit

The use of derogatory names is hardly limited to Arizona. Native people living in far northern Canada and Alaska call themselves Inuit - again, "we the people" - while the Crees to their southeast called them Eskimos, "those who eat raw flesh." The Sioux call themselves Dakotas or Lakotas, meaning "allies" or "people," but their ancient enemies, the Ojibwes, called them Nadouwesioux, meaning "little snakes" or "enemies," and the French shortened it to Sioux. In turn, Ojibwes, sometimes written Chippewas, refer to themselves as Anishinabes, "people of the creation." "Mohawk" means "cannibal" in Algonquian; they call themselves "Kaniengehagas," "people of the place of flint."

Salish

Some names take note of physical characteristics of Natives. Thus British Americans called the Salish ("we the people") the Flathead Indians. The French called two groups of Indians "Gros Ventres," "big bellies," apparently derived from their name in Indian sign language. The French also renamed the Nimipus ("we the people") the Nez Perces, "pierced noses," because some of them wore nose pendants.

The Delaware Indians (Lenni Lenape)

A few names were complimentary. On the east coast the British renamed the Lenape "Delawares." They didn't mind once the British explained that Lord De La Ware was a brave military leader. Lenape means - you guessed it - "we the people." 3 The most famous new name of all - "Indians," coined by Columbus for the Arawaks he met in the Caribbean - was complimentary in a sense: Columbus either thought he was in the East Indies or hoped to convince his supporters that he had reached that important trading destination by using the term. 4

Some whites claim that their practice of naming sports teams for Native Americans is complimentary. Thus we have the Florida State University Seminoles, Cleveland Indians, Atlanta Braves, and worst of all, Washington Redskins. Some Indians do consider some of these terms flattering.

The Cleveland Indians defend their name on that basis, claiming it stems from a popular member of the team in the 1890s. "Chief Wahoo," the bucktooth Indian caricature that decorates Cleveland uniforms, offends many Native Americans today however. And Native American newspapers continue to react angrily to the "Washington Redskins." How long would Americans tolerate the "Atlanta Niggers," they ask? Or the "New York Kikes?" Even positive terms like "braves" trivialize Native Americans as mascots, some Indians assert.

"Hopi" means "peaceful ones."

At least two tribes in Arizona are called by their own names. "Havasupai" means "people of the blue-green waters," referring to their homeland's beautiful waterfalls in a side gorge of the Grand Canyon, and "Hopi" means "peaceful ones." Some other Arizona Indians have given in to the renaming. Apaches now acquiesce to being called "Apaches." Many Navajos accept "Navajo" rather than insisting on "Dine." Many Pimas now call themselves Pimas. Papagos, however, are making a concerted effort to be known as Tohono O'otam.

In Minnesota some Ojibwes now ask others to call them Anishinabes. Throughout the world, naming has been a prerogative of power. With colonialism on the wane, calling natives by the name they use for themselves is gradually becoming accepted practice. Thus when leaders in Upper Volta changed its name to Burkino Faso, mapmakers had to make the adjustment. 5 Native Americans who care may win similar respect in coming years. (source: World Free Internet)

Niggerhead Rock

Niggerhead Rock, Virginia

This hanging rock formation is best seen traveling south bound on Route 70 near Pennington Gap, Virginia. Stoneface was for many years known by a derogatory racial term (Niggerhead Rock) before being renamed Stoneface.

Nigger Head Rock

The rock formation formerly known as "Nigger Head Rock," has changed its name to "The Great Stone Face," or "Stoneface" is located in Pennington Gap, Virginia. It is said to mark the entrance to Cherokee holy ground.

Nigger Head Oysters

Original Brand: Nigger Head Oysters

Jet Magazine reported on 18 August 1955 in an article entitled, "Name change of the week." Under repeated pressure brought by the NAACP, the Aughinbaugh Canning Company of Biloxi, Mississippi, changed the name of its oysters. The old name: "Nigger Head Brand." The new name : "Negro Head Brand."

Newly branded "Negro Head Oysters"

Cuban Tobacco

From Countries Quest, "Spanish Rule, Prosperity and Plunder": Cuba’s strategic location in the Caribbean made it become an important port and military base. The Spanish organized a shipping system that transported European goods to the Americas and returned American wealth and resources to Spain. Cuba was an important part of this system. It guarded the sea channels through which the treasure ships passed twice a year. Havana harbor served as a base for refitting the treasure fleets before the return voyage to Spain.

This concentration of Spanish treasure drew the attention of other European powers. The French attacked Havana in 1555, only two years after it had been named the new capital of Cuba. King Charles I of Spain immediately established a naval base. He built several imposing fortresses to guard the mouth of Havana’s harbor and stationed between 400 and 1,000 soldiers to defend Cuba’s coasts. Suddenly Cuba began attracting settlers who served as military personnel, built ships, provided food, and constructed buildings. However, little of the riches that passed through Havana Harbor reached the Cuban population, who remained poor, with very little economic security.

The Spanish military presence was focused around Havana in the west, leaving eastern Cuba open to French and English raids. Eastern Cuba also emerged as a center of illegal trade in Cuban tobacco, cattle, and sugar. Many Spanish colonists regularly broke the law to trade with foreign merchants because they disliked the official Spanish policy. This policy decreed that only Spanish merchants could trade with the colony, keeping import prices high and reducing profits on Cuban exports.

In the 17th century Cuba began importing African slaves. The slaves replaced the rapidly disappearing indigenous people as laborers in copper mines and on sugar plantations. By 1650 African slaves numbered 5,000, compared to an indigenous population of 2,000. Under Cuban law slaves could buy their freedom, and eventually the Cuban population contained a high number of free blacks and mulattoes.

The arrival of slaves resulted in one of the most notable characteristics of Cuba’s heritage: a racially mixed population. During the first two centuries of Spanish settlement, few European women settled in Cuba. Spanish men married or had relationships with indigenous and African women. Cuba’s classes and races blended, producing a mixture of religions, music, language, foods, and customs that combined three cultures into a new Cuban culture.

In the early 18th century, Spain introduced a series of administrative reforms in its colonies designed to modernize colonial institutions. The first reform focused on the tobacco trade, creating a tobacco monopoly in Cuba that set prices, regulated production, and sold products abroad. The monopoly kept most of the profits for itself, and its policies provoked three armed rebellions among Cuban tobacco growers between 1717 and 1723. The last uprising resulted in a compromise, which allowed Cuban growers to sell two-thirds of their crops outside the monopoly.

Another attempt at reform centered on sugar production. The royal company established in 1740 made high profits from the sugar trade. However, its wealth created inflation within Cuba, driving small farmers and people not involved in sugar to near ruin. Sugar output expanded, and by 1760 those with influence in the sugar monopoly became Cuba’s new elite.

During the 18th century, Cuba began developing its own cultural and social institutions. Cubans built seminaries—schools for training priests—and founded other schools, including the University of Havana, established in 1728. Access to higher learning and the arts was not restricted to the elite class. Slaves who had purchased their freedom began forming associations that paid for education and medical treatment for their members. Some blacks were able to advance into the middle class as well, but the owners of large sugar plantations continued to dominate the economy, and most wealth went to Spaniards and white Creoles (Spaniards born in Cuba).



Some of the Spanish policies that had hampered Creole hopes for economic advancement ended abruptly as a result of the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763), which pitted France and Spain against the British. In 1762 Havana was attacked and held by the British. Though the British occupation lasted only ten months, it opened Cuba’s economy to free trade with Britain and her colonies. When the British pulled out of Cuba at the end of the war, Spain relaxed its trade policy and permitted Spanish colonies to trade among themselves. This increased Havana’s importance to both Spain and the other Spanish colonies. (source: Countries Quest )

History of Cuban Cigars

History of Cuban Cigars

The tobacco plant, historians concur, came to Cuba from South America somewhere between 3000 and 2000 B.C., where it became an integral part of the cultural life of the island's Indian natives.

Believed to have medicinal qualities, the raw leaves were twisted and smoked for centuries before Columbus sailed to the New World. The cigar's introduction to Europe and the rest of the world would soon follow.

Although royal European leaders, including King Phillip II of Spain, condemned the plant as evil, Cuban tobacco gained popularity. Spain soon realized the commercial value of the plant and, during the late 16th century, began playing a pivotal role in its manufacturing and distribution throughout Europe.

Initially tobacco was only distributed as a raw material through Spanish royal offices, assuring Spaniards an unimpeded flow of tax money. In 1717, King Felipe V cemented the royal monopoly of Cuban tobacco, known simply as the "Tobacco Monopoly," and Cubans were relegated to growing tobacco solely for Spain. During this period, distributing tobacco seeds to a non-Spanish colony was punishable by death.

But cigar cultivation was already deeply rooted in Cuba, resulting in the development of planting, curing and rolling skills that would make Cuban's experts in the field-it's a culture that has defied reproduction elsewhere. Tobacco became Cuba's top agricultural product during the 18th century, quickly permeating Cuban culture and society.

In 1817, King Ferdinand VII issued a royal decree allowing the free trade of tobacco from Cuba to the rest of the world, albeit through Spanish ports. It was the birth of the modern Cuban cigar industry.

Cigar cultivation and production has changed very little since then.

Today a majority of Cuban tobacco is grown in the Pinar del Rio province, in the western section of the island. The singular microclimate and rich soil of this area lends Cuban tobacco its unique flavor, which experts say is the finest in the world. (source: Only Cuban Cigars)

Carl Van Vechten by Romaine Brooks

Hide/Seek: Carl Van Vechten by Romaine Brooks

Pamphlet, The Jobless Negro, c. 1933. Written by Elizabeth Lawson

THURGOOD MARSHALL INTERVIEW with MIKE WALLACE

Thurgood Marshall

US Unemployment Rate for African Americans

From the Washington Post, "U.S. unemployment rate for blacks projected to hit 25-year high," by V. Dion Haynes 15 January 2010: Unemployment for African Americans is projected to reach a 25-year high this year, according to a study released Thursday by an economic think tank, with the national rate soaring to 17.2 percent and the rates in five states exceeding 20 percent.

Blacks as well as Latinos were far behind whites in employment levels even when the economy was booming. But throughout the recession, the unemployment rate has grown much faster for African Americans and Latinos than for whites, according to the study by the Economic Policy Institute. Moreover, the unemployment gap between men and women has reached a record high -- with men far outpacing women in joblessness.

The national trend is playing out in the Washington area, even though jobless levels are lower here.

In the District, researchers say, the unemployment rate during the third quarter of this year is expected to reach 6.1 percent for whites and 18.9 percent for blacks. Unemployment in Maryland is forecast to reach 6.1 percent for whites and 11.3 percent for blacks. And in Virginia, 6.3 percent of whites are projected to be out of work, compared with 13 percent of blacks.

The rate for Latinos in Maryland is expected to reach 7.6 percent. Researchers did not include data on Hispanics in the District and Virginia because the samples were too small.

Blacks, Hispanics and men have suffered the most mainly because they have been disproportionately employed in sectors hardest hit in the recession -- manufacturing and construction. For instance, the unemployment rate for blacks is expected to reach 27 percent in Michigan, which has been shedding auto industry jobs. Other states with jobless rates above 20 percent for blacks are Alabama, Illinois, Ohio and South Carolina.

The rate for Hispanics is projected to reach 22.2 percent in Nevada, which has experienced a dramatic slowdown in construction.

The results demonstrate that the Obama administration needs to do more to target groups with high unemployment rates, experts say. The Congressional Black Caucus wants the government to create training programs and jobs in low-income communities with the highest unemployment rates.

"It's like triage in an emergency room -- you take care of people who need the most help first and you help the others later," said Kai Filion, research analyst at the Economic Policy Institute. He said that the economic losses could result in a 50 percent poverty rate for black children, up from 34 percent in 2008.

The economic devastation for blacks and Hispanics is underscored in another study issued this week by a Boston-based nonprofit research organization called United for a Fair Economy. "State of the Dream," its annual report issued in connection with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, asserted that blacks and Hispanics are three times as likely to be poor as whites; that blacks earn 62 cents for every dollar whites earn; and that the family median net worth of whites in 2007 was $170,400, compared with $27,800 for blacks and Hispanics.

"We have a long history of discriminatory policies and practices, including outright segregation, redlining, misguided urban renewal plans and predatory lending, that have prevented people of color from building up personal wealth," said Brian Miller, executive director of United for a Fair Economy and co-author of the report.

According to the Economic Policy Institute report, the unemployment rate for blacks is projected to reach a not-seasonally adjusted rate of 17.2 percent in the third quarter of this year, up from 15.5 percent during the same period last year. And the rate for Hispanics is forecast to jump to 13.9 percent from 12.4 percent. The study is based on Bureau of Labor Statistics data and projections from Moody's Economy.com.

Researchers say the unemployment rate for whites will rise 5 percentage points from the beginning of the recession in December 2007 to the third quarter of 2010. But during that same period, they say, it will climb 8.6 points for blacks and 7.9 points for Hispanics. (source: The Washington Post)

The History of Racism - Episode 3 (part 6/6)

How Bigotry Shaped Baltimore

JAY: So when I drive around Baltimore now--and it still seems very much an apartheid city. There's certain areas that seem racially diverse (is the word people use), but by and large, you go into one neighborhood and you see mostly black people, and you go into another and you see almost all white people. So is that true? Is that still the case?

PIETILA: Well, that is true, but it is also true about many other American cities. Hyper-segregation in residential neighborhoods is a standard rather than exception.

JAY: So you dug into how that took place in Baltimore, 'cause it's not just by chance or just by sort of some vague ideological or cultural reasons. There was some real planning behind all of this. Tell us the story, how we got to an apartheid Baltimore.

PIETILA: Well, in a very peculiar way, Baltimore became a laboratory for residential segregation. Baltimore in 1910 was the first American city that enacted a city council law requiring that its residential neighborhood be segregated. About 40 other cities copied Baltimore's law, mostly in the old confederacy. And then, in 1917, the Supreme Court said this approach is a wrong one. By that time, restrictive covenants had become the standard--homeowners joining together and saying there are certain people we don't want as our neighbors. They concluded a legally binding agreement. And that is how residential segregation was handled in most American cities.

JAY: And the binding agreement is you agree not to sell your house to someone who isn't white.

PIETILA: That's correct, or Jewish, or--.

JAY: But that's the other thing about your research is that this was about Jews. It wasn't just about blacks.

PIETILA: Absolutely. And all this kind of tied together to what then was the prevailing social philosophy, eugenics, which classified certain races and nationalities as better than some other ones.

JAY: One of the real estate developers you quote in your book is talking about it's okay to have a black neighborhood, it's okay to have a white neighborhood, it's okay to have a Jewish one; just never the--should--I don't know what--it's not Twain [incompr.] And so it was quite overt and quite deliberate.

PIETILA: It was quite deliberate. And homeowners subscribe to these kinds of agreements. And once you signed it, then the next buyer would have to sign the same covenant. And the real estate industry basically honored these covenants. And many of the real estate boards, not only in Baltimore but in other cities, actually thought that it was illegal, against their own guidelines and bylaws, to bring in inharmonious elements, as the [crosstalk]

JAY: So it's against the bylaws to break the covenants.

PIETILA: That's right, and for real estate brokers to sell houses to people who were seen as inharmonious.

JAY: Now, this starts to change. And I don't know if I'm jumping ahead, but I think that at some point, some especially white working class areas, it starts to change. And how does that happen, and why?

PIETILA: Well, the big change comes, and it does not come instantly, but the big change comes in 1948, when the Supreme Court rules that covenants are unconstitutional. Covenants, per se, if we want to pass a covenant against dogs running in our neighborhoods, that's fine. If you want to bar from your neighborhood a Finn, like myself, you can do it. What you cannot do under the Supreme Court ruling is you cannot ask a court to enforce that covenant. And so this was--the big change in 1948 was that these covenants no longer could be enforced.

JAY: So it requires voluntary participation. But that was still okay after that Supreme Court decision. As long as everybody agreed to do it, it was still okay.

PIETILA: Well, I cite a startling--to me, a startling observation that even in the early 1970s, a couple of years after I first came to Baltimore, there were actually two separate multiple lists in Baltimore. There was the real estate board's multiple list that listed neighborhoods in white areas, and then there was a separate multiple list that listed properties in suburban areas that accepted Jews.

JAY: And was there a list for black areas as a separate [crosstalk]

PIETILA: Well, I mean, there was no need to have that kind of a list, because--.

JAY: 'Cause white people wouldn't move into those areas.

PIETILA: White people would not move in there, and blockbusting was expanding areas that were open to blacks. And so there really wasn't any need at that point.

JAY: Now, in your book, you talk about the role of local newspapers in kind of creating the environment that kind of facilitated all this. Can you speak about that?

PIETILA: Well, my former employer, The Baltimore Sun, when I first came to Baltimore, joining The Sun in 1969, still listed properties according to race: houses white, houses colored.

JAY: This is in '69, even--this is after the Fair Housing Act.

PIETILA: Sixty-nine.

JAY: Sixty-eight's the Fair Housing Act.

PIETILA: Sixty-nine. And then there were also--and this practice was on the wane by that time, but there was still an occasional ad that said "restricted". And everybody knew what "restricted" meant: no Jews, no blacks.

JAY: So talk a little bit more about the role of the papers in giving people the sense that they had to protect all of this because otherwise the real estate values would go down. You speak about how the papers fed this whole idea. Was that a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy in some sense?

PIETILA: Well, the papers fed it. And it's kind of interesting. When I was researching the book and asking about this policy, some of the old-time executives told me that the classifications persisted as long as they did because the buyers, the market, wanted it that way.

JAY: But is it just a question of classifications? 'Cause I think you refer to some articles from The Sun where they would do sort of analysis showing how property values would collapse if even one black person moved into a neighborhood. I mean, how much is the press helping cause this, rather than just reporting on it?

PIETILA: You asked about pricing. Why did property values go down? Well, property values went down because until the 1960s, late 1960s, there was little or no conventional financing available to black buyers. So if you were living in a white neighborhood, you wanted to sell your house, unless you finance that sale, you could not do it in a free market situation. So the only recourse for you, because the black buyer could not get financing, was to use a middle man, known as a blockbuster, who would give a pittance to you for that house and then flip it and sell it onward to a black buyer. And these blockbusters, the reason why they were able to do this was that in a market where there was no conventional financing available, they had investors who would provide 100 percent financing to the black buyer.

JAY: Okay. So in the next segment of our interview, let's dig into blockbusting. And this is where white working class neighborhoods are deliberately--black families are moved in deliberately by real estate speculators who want to first drive down prices and then drive them up again. And we'll dig into all that in the second part of our interview series on The Real News Network.

How Bigotry Shaped Baltimore


How Bigotry Shaped Baltimore


Federal Government and Bigotry in Baltimore

Baltimore School Desegregation: A Liberalism Education?

Baltimore City Police officer seperates whites and negro students at Southern High School to prevent fighting.October 1, 1954

From Baltimore City Paper, "A Liberalism Education: Howell Baum's exploration of Baltimore city school desegregation overlooks the local politics in its political posturing," by Edward Ericson Jr. 9 June 2010: In 1954, Baltimore became one of first school districts to voluntarily desegregate, and was the first large American city to do so, earning plaudits for its forward thinking.

Baltimore was the only one of the four early school districts to desegregate using only a "free choice" enrollment model, which simply allowed any student to enroll in any school. Other districts drew boundary lines meant to compel blacks and whites to attend the same schools. University of Maryland Urban Studies and Planning professor Howell Baum spins this remarkable fact into a brilliant and, alas, overwrought, theory in his Brown in Baltimore: "Liberalism," he writes, is what kept Baltimore schools racially segregated.

The story of school segregation--in Baltimore and elsewhere--after the historic 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education cases is now well-known. Rapidly shifting--and informally segregated--housing patterns outran and outflanked school desegregation plans from Baltimore to Boston, from Hartford to Houston. The infamous "massive resistance" threatened by Southern whites turned out to be a camera-ready sideshow to the insidious and much broader patterns of white flight and economic disinvestment that followed.

But Baum brings little analytical muscle to these larger trends, focusing instead on the singular decisions made by Baltimore leaders within the context of the city's unique culture and history. This is yeoman's work, competently accomplished. But in trying to tie local history to the larger forces that shaped American society since the 1950s, Baum downplays or overlooks factors that don't fit his thesis.

That thesis--like so much of what passes for scholarship these days--is seductively simple. Baum locates the problem in "liberalism," broadly defined. Liberals of the time believed in free choice and small government (self-described "conservatives" claim that mantel today, but Baum is correct, historically speaking). Because classic liberals believed in free choice and a non-coercive school assignment policy, continuing segregation was all but preordained, Baum argues.

But in the details of Baum's narrative lurk elements of Baltimore's political character that differ from classic liberalism. From the school board chaos of the early 1970s and the credible claim that African-Americans, by then, considered the school system more of a power base than a moral cause, to William Donald Schaefer's Nixonian response to federal desegregation pleas and his close tending of his patrons' contractual needs--and even to the barely discussed white flight and blockbusting activities of the '50s and '60s, which, as Antero Pietila shows in Not in My Neighborhood ("Chopping Blocks," Feature, March 17), were tied firmly not only to key civil rights leaders, but also to career criminals and some of the state's biggest banks--the context of Baltimore's school segregation was at once smaller and more complex than a signal flaw in liberalism.

Baum fails to explore how his subjects' actual motives may have diverged from their stated political philosophy. This failure is remarkable given the detailed evidence he marshals.

Much of Brown consists of a blow-by-blow recounting of Baltimore's struggles with desegregation and its failure to embrace racial integration. The detailed account reads in places like meeting minutes, and the long stretches between bouts of analysis and context can leave a reader weary. It's simply not that interesting, 30 years on, to read about the school system's third response to a demand from the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (which split in 1979 into Health and Human Services and the Department of Education) that it voluntarily desegregate city schools.

What is interesting, though, is the behavior of political icons such as Schaefer (he was a sly race-baiter from the start) and--gasp--Barbara Mikulski, who effectively fought desegregation in the city's Southeast neighborhood in the guise of protecting neighborhood cohesiveness from meddling federal bureaucrats.

These political interventions, which Baum cites as manifestations of liberalism, have alternate explanations that could have further illustrated the city's political culture. Baum couches Baltimore as a border city, attributing its political and social culture to its geography and to the insults it endured during the Civil War. Though not wrong, this feels incomplete. Baltimore's parochialism may be partly attributable to its dashed hopes of civic glory, as Baum argues, but it also might be the result of tactics so ingrained in the city's political families as to be second nature. Setting east against west, neighborhood against neighborhood, keeps the rabble's mind's off more substantive matters, such as who is actually getting paid. Baum does not explore this possibility.

Much of Brown's narrative rests on the proposition that stemming white flight is the most important aspect in keeping (or making) the city viable. Forced busing will exacerbate white flight, one Johns Hopkins professor warns in the early 1970s as the federal government pressured city officials to act. No, counters another professor, only a specific desegregation policy will assure white families that "school will be integrated wherever they move within the city and will not become overwhelmingly black anywhere."

Baum endorses the latter position, though he never provides any supporting evidence. This argument is questionable on its face, and even more so when you examine the claim that Baltimore schools, under a directed desegregation plan, would "not become overwhelmingly black anywhere" in a city with a public-school enrollment that was already 73 percent black. By any logical assessment, the integration battle was already lost. (By 2004, the 50th anniversary of the Brown decision, it was 89 percent.)

What Baum's Brown is missing is a forthright discussion of the benefit to black students of learning with whites. The study Baum cites, 1966's "Equality of Educational Opportunity Study," published in 1966, paired poor blacks with middle class whites, and did not tease out the effects of race versus the effects of class.

Yet class and cultural issues--as opposed to race--may have animated much of the exodus. A November 1975 Sun story Baum cites (but does not discuss at length) quoted black parents who were fleeing the city school system. One mother said of her son, "He's not a big boy and he was getting beat up on all the time."

While acknowledging it, Baum does not address in any substantive way the fear of physical harm experienced by students and parents on both sides of the racial divide. How did those fears influence city officials? How do they square with those officials' alleged fealty to liberalism? Baum doesn't say.

Realities bigger than education and segregation outran the law, and Baum could have explored those realities--from the savage disinvestment to the city's increasing reliance on a drug-fueled shadow economy; from its corrupt and dynastic political system to the fraud-fueled real estate market that herded blacks into and whites out of neighborhoods, enriching a corps of well-connected hustlers in the process. By focusing instead on minutia such as meeting minutes from early 1970s school board meetings, hearing transcripts from administrative proceedings--and by presupposing that Baltimore's government operated within a broadly liberal framework (instead of, to cite just one possible counter-narrative, within a framework of institutionalized corruption)--Baum misses much of what made Baltimore the segregated, violent, and poor city it is today. Liberalism certainly played its part in the city's undoing, but piling Baltimore--or even just its dilapidated, predominantly black schools--at the feet of liberalism looks more than uncharitable and less than scholarly.

It looks like marketing. (source: Baltimore City Paper)