A Challenge to the Monmouth County Human Rights Commission

There is racial segregation going on the Monmouth County schools. According to my friend Tom DeSeno, it has been happening since 1996.

Here's what DeSeno had to say about the matter last November:

Now, let's you and I talk about Abbott Districts.

Asbury Park gets $60 million yearly in Abbott funds. It is per capita the most expensive Abbott in the state.

The district includes rich white towns like Avon, Allenhurst, Interlaken and Deal.

In 1996 they started busing the rich white kids past Asbury up to Red Bank Regional, another public high school about 6 or 7 miles away.

That CREATED Asbury as an Abbott district by segregating just the poorest black kids in the county to one school.

Here is a typical conversation I have with people from the rich towns surrounding Asbury:

RICH WHITE GUY: You know Tom, I resent having to send Asbury $60 million in Abbott funds from my tax money each year.

ME: If you stop busing your kids away and put them back in their home district in Asbury, then Asbury will lose its Abbott designation, and you won't have to pay it anymore.

RICH WHITE GUY: You know Tom, on second thought, why don't you just keep that $60 million.

Listen grasshopper, I'm going to teach you a dirty little secret about Abbotts, that the liberal press won't tell you:

Abbott money in Asbury, is "segregation hush money." Both sides of it are guilty.

White people will complain about the money, but won't change anything because they don't want their kids back in Asbury.

Black people will complain about the segregation, but they won't change it either, because wasting $60 million a year in other people's money is just way too much fun!

Meanwhile, Asbury kids are caught in the middle, attending a racially segregated school (and they know it), created by busing white kids away from their home district, as if Brown v Board of Education never happened.

There is a government caused racially segregated school right here where you live, Eric. Just like they had in the segregated south.

You seem to me to be a decent fellow, so I'm betting that deep down, that troubles you on a moral level.

If this were the 1960's, activists would be parachuting in here to stop a school segregated by government action.

Where are the 1960's-style liberal activists in the mold of Bobby Kennedy to stop it? Today they are too concerned about polar bears to even know there is segregation in their own county.

Where are the Republican activists like Martin Luther King, Jr? Surely a Republican in his mold would complain of a racially segregated school. What issue is so important today that it keeps them from this one?

So I'll tell you, like I tell all the people that don't want to face the segregation question underpinning Abbott districts:

Complain about Abbott money all you want - just don't be late with my $60 million check.

Reverend Teasley and Company, what are you going to do about this?

Please, appoint a sub-commission with no conflicts to investigate the Brookdale diversity matter, and take up this much more serious issue post-haste.