Often used sardonically, the phrase is meant to mean, simply, that often, things remain very consistent even as "change" happens around us. Think of it in this way: You may move into a new office at work but the Internet is still horrible. Or you may get a new, faster car, but the traffic to and from work still sucks.
Or this: Even as our country fought a civil war, passed anti-slavery legislation, and, a century later, ditched poll taxes and other Jim Crow laws in the Deep South, there is still segregation even today. And it's being committed by black people.
A black Atlanta mother has filed a federal lawsuit against a black principal and public school after her daughter and other students were separated by race and then taught in separate classrooms.
Kila Posey filed her complaint against Mary Lin Elementary School in which she said Principal Sharyn Briscoe informed her that she instituted the segregated classroom concept because she felt that would be best for students.
In her complaint, Posey (pictured above) said that Briscoe told her that she put black students in their own classrooms, separate from white students, because she thought that somehow they would get a better education, apparently.
But to her credit, Posey, who is also black, wasn't having that.
Posey, who is vice president of operations for the local Parent Teachers Association (PTA), told local media that she learned about the segregated classrooms when she asked Briscoe to put her daughter in a certain classroom with a specific teacher. In response, Briscoe said that wouldn't be possible because the teacher that Posey requested for her daughter was not head of a classroom designated for black students.
“[The principal] said that’s not one of the black classes, and I immediately said, ‘What does that mean?’ I was confused,” Posey recounted in an interview with WSB-TV, a local station, after discovering what was going on last year.
“I asked for more clarification. I was like, ‘We have those in the school?’ And she proceeded to say, ‘Yes. I have decided that I’m going to place all of the black students in two classes,'” Posey continued.
“We’ve lost sleep like trying to figure out why would a person do this,” Posey said.
“First, it was just disbelief that I was having this conversation in 2020 with a person that looks just like me — a black woman,” Posey told the station. “It’s segregating classrooms. You cannot segregate classrooms. You can’t do it.”
She's absolutely right, of course; forced segregation is so against federal law (not to mention every standard of equality and decency Americans claim to care about and cherish).
Posey and her attorney, Sharese Shields, believe that Briscoe clearly violated the Civil Rights Act.
“Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 says that you cannot treat one group of people differently based upon race, and that is what is going on at Mary Lin,” Shields told the local station.
Posey went on to say that despite Briscoe's highly illegal act, she nevertheless insisted that her daughter be placed into a classroom that also had white students.
“I explained to [Briscoe] she shouldn’t be isolated or punished because I’m unwilling to go along with your illegal and unethical practice,” Posey added.
But this outrage gets worse.
Posey confidentially recorded a phone call with an unnamed assistant principal who told her that the decision to segregate was up to Briscoe, adding this incredibly racist nugget: “I just wish we had more black kids, and then some of them are in a class because of the services that they need.”
What 'services?' We can only guess because the unnamed official didn't expound.
In a statement, Atlanta Public Schools officials put a lot of distance between itself and Briscoe's actions.
“Atlanta public schools does not condone the assigning of students to classrooms based on race. The district conducted a review of the allegations. Appropriate actions were taken to address the issue and the matter was closed,” said a statement to WSB-TV.
Sadly, the district didn't announce that Briscoe was quickly fired upon learning about what she'd done, which is exactly what should have happened.
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