Race-Neutral Policies, Quasi-Policies and Privilege Related to Zoning in an Atlanta School District
Location
Room 1002
Proposal Track
Research Project
Session Format
Presentation
Abstract
This paper examines how “race-neutral” school zoning policies and procedures resulted in a distinctly racially-biased outcome. Specifically I use critical race theory, Omi and Winant’s racial formation theory, and Zeus Leonardo’s work: Imagining the Urban, to interrogate a 2008 decision by a metro Atlanta school district to address overcrowding by building a new school that effectively relocated and isolated a substantial population of low-income Latino/a students. The “race-neutral” re-zoning policies and procedures were exploited by some white residents to, effectively, create a quasi-policy which isolated Latino/a students. I argue that white supremacy, a “bootstrap” mentality related to racial immigrants, and nativist fears and concerns were the primary bases for the resulting “racial project”. I further posit that these offenses culminate in a belief about ordinary vs. extraordinary based on the argument utilized by Dostoyevsky’s main character, Raskolnikov, in Crime and Punishment, in justifying his murder of an elderly neighbor. He believed that any action of the extraordinary upon or against or the “ordinary” is made valid by virtue of one’s perceived intellectual superiority. In a similar way, I contend that some white residents took an ordinary vs. extraordinary stance based not on intellect as in Raskolnikov’s case, but on race.
Keywords
Rezoning, Resegregation, Race-neutral policies, Linguistic isolation, Critical race theory
Recommended Citation
Dixon, LaDonna, "Race-Neutral Policies, Quasi-Policies and Privilege Related to Zoning in an Atlanta School District" (2014). Georgia Educational Research Association Conference. 46.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/gera/2014/2014/46
Proposal
Race-Neutral Policies, Quasi-Policies and Privilege Related to Zoning in an Atlanta School District
Room 1002
This paper examines how “race-neutral” school zoning policies and procedures resulted in a distinctly racially-biased outcome. Specifically I use critical race theory, Omi and Winant’s racial formation theory, and Zeus Leonardo’s work: Imagining the Urban, to interrogate a 2008 decision by a metro Atlanta school district to address overcrowding by building a new school that effectively relocated and isolated a substantial population of low-income Latino/a students. The “race-neutral” re-zoning policies and procedures were exploited by some white residents to, effectively, create a quasi-policy which isolated Latino/a students. I argue that white supremacy, a “bootstrap” mentality related to racial immigrants, and nativist fears and concerns were the primary bases for the resulting “racial project”. I further posit that these offenses culminate in a belief about ordinary vs. extraordinary based on the argument utilized by Dostoyevsky’s main character, Raskolnikov, in Crime and Punishment, in justifying his murder of an elderly neighbor. He believed that any action of the extraordinary upon or against or the “ordinary” is made valid by virtue of one’s perceived intellectual superiority. In a similar way, I contend that some white residents took an ordinary vs. extraordinary stance based not on intellect as in Raskolnikov’s case, but on race.
