Back in 1962, when George Wallace won the gubernatorial election and gave his inauguration day speech, he said that he was drawing the line in the sand, and saying, ‘Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever.’ While most see his words today as a horrific racist stance that is far beyond the times, it’s surprising when most actually look at the city of Birmingham, and the state of Alabama as a whole.

Fast forward more than 40 years, and it’s amazing to see what progress has and hasn’t been made. Yes, the city of Birmingham has been able to break the ties of the over-the-mountain old money as leadership as replace it with its own citizens that best represent the population of the city, which is majority African-American. However, the city has become such because since the 1950s, white flight has catastrophically created a world outside the city, complete with ‘city school’ systems to maintain the status quo, leaving Birmingham without major sources of revenue (since all of the department stores, entertainment venues, etc. have all been placed outside of the city limits) to fund its educational system. As the Birmingham News reported earlier this summer, while Birmingham City Schools are making progress in test scores and graduation rates, they are far below some of the ‘city’ or private school systems put into place to separate themselves from the urban life.

The latest example? In Tuscaloosa, parents have become enraged at the process of rezoning in the high school systems. Most of the students forced to move were African-American, and they were taken from better institutions and placed in lower-performing schools. You see, segregation still has its place in our modern day society. Wallace’s words are echoing throughout the halls of the schools, ‘Segregation forever.’

While legally segregation is a violation of the constitution, loopholes have been found. It’s a new kind of segregation, based on social privilege. Some of the highest scores produced in the state come from schools that have broken away from the county school system and are funded by the state, in addition to deep pockets of benefactors and parents. Since when did your upbringing define who you would become? It would be fabulous to say that the answer is never, but the truth has reared its ugly head.

And as I am a proud southerner, I will say this as well… It’s NOT just OUR problem. It doesn’t just occur down south, where the region has continually and unfairly been subjected to stereotypical sweeping generalizations that everyone is racist, or wants the South to rise again. The subject seems much like the Biblical parable that before you can remove a speck out of someone’s eye, you should try to take the two-by-four out of your own socket.

I’ve been outside of the South, and also within its educational system. I chose to go to a more diversified high school, because I was disgusted with the racist system set up at my neighborhood school. I’ve seen this same problem… it’s all over the country. New York. Ohio. Maryland. Virginia. Washington, D.C., Michigan. The list can go on and on.

Why is it that most states have ‘gerrymandered’ districts to ensure an ethnic representative that can relate with the population? Why are magnet schools set up to attract students to inner city schools? How does an educational system that has promised to produce bright and shining students and not leaving a single child behind, falter and leave both students and teachers without results? Why is it normal for a school administration to allow nooses to be hung as a threat to other students? Why are metal detectors required at inner-city schools, and not at rural schools?

There is so much racial profiling going on within the educational system, it makes me sick. I’m very fortunate to have had the opportunities that I have had, but I’ve had to fight for every single chance… because the educational system that promises to award bright students with tuition left this student (who graduated 8th in the class, with a 3.94 GPA) without any means of support, and left my parents working as hard as they could to help me get through school and become one of the first college graduates in the family. And now, trying to complete a master’s has become an even harder task… not based on the work in school, but what it takes to pay for it and get by.

And, if I’m your average middle-class family, then how in the world will anyone else have the same opportunities with an educational system that continues to squash its promises?