By Margaret Beale Spencer and Nancy E. Dowd
Brown v. Board of Education is often treated as an icon; as standing for the best of us. But we make too little of it. We resist and ignore its true meaning. When we do that, this icon of equality, ironically, becomes an apology and justification for inequality.
Brown condemned the belief system that justified the comprehensive system of segregation. That is why it is a radical case with a radical mandate. We must rediscover its radical mandate to know where we need to go now.
Commonly referred to as The Segregation Cases, Brown consolidated five cases, from Kansas, South Carolina, Delaware, Virginia and the District of Columbia, reminding us that segregation in various forms was national. The Supreme Court said two key things in the decision. First, segregation is unconstitutional because it is “inherently unequal.” It violates the equality principal core to our country. Second, it is “inherently unequal” because at its core is the belief in the lesser humanity of Black people, the communication of inferiority based on that belief, and the false racial superiority of whites, causing incalculable harm to “hearts and minds unlikely ever to be undone.”
The remedy for the harm was its opposite—a comprehensive equality system based on common equal humanity. The intangible basis of Brown was its key. Beliefs dictate everything—buildings, teachers, curriculum, school culture, socio-emotional learning, maximizing the development of every child.
Brown’s comprehensive mandate can only be understood by understanding the scope of the harm. The purpose of segregation was to replace, restore, “redeem” white supremacy and racial hierarchy threatened by the end of slavery. The purpose was dehumanization and psychological harm. Slavery was a total system, reinforced socially as well as legally. Racial identity was key; Black racial identification was grounded in presumed lack of humanity Hegemony linked structured and pervasive inequality social science traditions precipitated and contributed to beliefs of White superiority. Segregation represented a morphing, reconstituted system of slavery. The two are inextricably intertwined. Finding segregation unconstitutional was radical. It requires remembering the totality of that system and creating its opposite, a multiracial comprehensive equality system. In an equality system, Black people are equals, equally human; and white people have recast toxic identity to a presumed standard of health and well-being. As the Supreme Court commanded in 1968, it means eliminating segregation “root and branch,” and establishing equality, root and branch, in its place.
We have ignored this radical mandate of Brown; 70 years on, our current context of educational and other inequalities is embedded with this failure. In our current unequal context, children of color are treated as less human, and White children are imbued with crippling beliefs and lessons of inhumane racial supremacy.
Under-interrogated, “invisibilized,” dehumanization traditions continue to impact both Blacks and Whites. Inequality conditions and inhumanity beliefs harm us all as humans but do so differently. In spite of numerous demonstrations of resilience and thriving, Black and brown children and adults have suffered and continue to suffer disproportionately and comprehensively from the failure to implement Brown’s mandate of comprehensive equality. Whites have been affected differently, unfairly benefitting from skewed, privileging systems infused with beliefs of White supremacy, and, at the same time, inflicting intergenerationally experienced conditions of Black incapacity and inhumanity.
Whites function on a construction of Whiteness that profoundly undermines their humanity, socio-emotional-associated character virtue, and potential for morality. Black-White differentials of experience and structured contextual variations mandate approaches informed by equity.
Creating real comprehensive equality requires, then, attention to history, context, and the developmental process to achieve real change.
Unlike social science theorizing about diverse groups prevalent in the 1930s through the 1970s, PVEST is an identity-focused cultural-ecological theoretical perspective that acknowledges the human condition of both vulnerability status for everyone and the potential for resilience and thriving as experienced by all demographics. Inclusive theoretical framing (e.g., PVEST) underscores and analyzes how much context matters, how the ecology impacts the successful completion of developmental tasks and socio-emotional reactions, and can explain how beliefs that dehumanize blacks and, as well, structures beliefs of white superiority. Understanding this existing negative dynamic—as orchestrated systems—points to the means for change to achieve comprehensive equality.
The way forward begins with unwavering dedication to Brown’s principle of shared humanity.
About the Authors
Margaret Beale Spencer is Charles F. Grey Distinguished Service Professor Emerita and Marshall Field IV Professor Emerita of Urban Education and Life Course Development in the Department of Comparative Human Development at the University of Chicago. Nancy E. Dowd is University of Florida Distinguished Professor Emerita and David H. Levin Chair in Family Law Emerita at the University of Florida Levin College of Law. They are the authors of Radical Brown, published by Harvard Education Press.