Over the past two weeks, This American Life ran a two part series on the resegregation of American public schools. It is excellent and you should go listen to it here and here.

The centerpiece of the first part is a town hall meeting in a predominantly white Missouri school district. White residents had just learned that students from the mostly black district that includes Ferguson, Missouri would be joining their own children due to a law giving students in failing school systems the opportunity to attend classes elsewhere — and these white parents were pissed. One mother demanded metal detectors and drug sniffing dogs, because she falsely believed that the black district was struggling because of a record of “violent behavior.” “I shopped for a school district!” she proclaimed as the crowd of white parents erupted around her in cheers, “I deserve to not have to worry about my children getting stabbed, or taking a drug, or getting robbed.”

Another parent recalled, again to an approving crowd, a time when the mostly white community blocked plans to build public […]