In the terminology of in-groups and out-groups, they were being pressured to form a cohesive in-group of their own -- ostensibly to resist certain efforts toward integration and to celebrate their own cultural heritage.
Up to a certain point, this trend is understandable and even defensible. However, when peer pressure works to suggest that getting an education is somehow not a good thing, this kind of attitude about getting an education can be self-defeating in the long run.
Regarding the schools, Colby pointedly says, "To say that America's schools are resegregating is to misstate the facts. They can't resegregate. They've never integrated. The absence of artificial transfer programs to shuttle kids around just means we're seeing the country for what it has been all along. What it never stopped being" (pages 204-205).
Colby's book is designed to be a kind of report card about Dr. King's dream of integration -- or at least a kind of report about it. Colby centers his attention on four places:
(1) Birmingham, Alabama, where he went to school at suburban Vestavia during the heyday of busing to achieve racial integration;
(2) Kansas City, Missouri, where he perceptively focuses on housing issues;
(3) Madison Avenue, where he worked at one time as a copy writer in an advertising company;
(4) Lafayette, Louisiana, where he spent his toddlerhood and the early years of his life.
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