For An Editor Of An Alt-Weekly, Garrigan Was Pretty Right Wing

By Kleinheider Posted on July 16, 2008 at 5:49 pm

But in his first posting on Pith in the Wind, newly ensconced editor Pete Kotz, looks to give Garrigan a run for her money:

Busing blew that up. Conventional wisdom decreed that if kids were forced to integrate, all would rise under the miracle of equal opportunity. It was a beautiful plan on paper. But rare is the parent black or white who wants to send Little Johnny across town, away from friends and family. Especially if one can afford to do otherwise.

So they voted with their feet. It was largely viewed as white flight, but that’s just a surface take. Anyone with a fortified bank account could bolt. And they did. What they left behind was a school district segregated not by race, but cleaved by economics. And it’s happened time and again across the country.

If your goal is to kill neighborhoods, extract from a city its moneyed, its best and brightest, busing is the quickest route.

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