How can a person who learned about white privilege from a black roommate,
former Minnesota Viking Oscar Reed, allow the Duluth School District to
gut its desegregation program and divide a school district in such a way as to enhance
racial and economic segregation?
I spoke with Mr.
Reed. He said he thought Dr. Dixon may have lived in his dorm. Embroidery
is apparently one of Dr. Dixon's tools of persuasion. As for those long
discussions about race with his "roommate." Who knows? Oh,
and when I asked Dr. Dixon who his roommate was Dr. Dixon also explained
that the college paired older students with freshman to help give them the
younger students little guidance. That was a convincing little detail. |
This anecdote was shared with the largely minority audience
connected to Duluth's Clayton
Jackson McGhie Memorial. I'm baffled by Dr. Dixon's tears twenty years after
a President, George
Herbert Walker Bush, proudly introduced his
Hispanic grandchildren, his "little brown ones," at a National
Republican Convention.
This should have been a chance for Dr. Dixon to tell his grand daughter
how beautiful she was, not a time to wallow in her misplaced shame. And
coming to tears telling the story! A more positive emotional tone would
have been a fierce determination to bury racism - the kind of cold-blooded
determination that Dr. Dixon has shown in his remorseless drive to
divide Duluth and kill the School District's desegregation program.
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