[INSPRATIONAL MUSIC STING] - Hi, everyone, Steve Adubato.

We kick off the program with a return guest who has really important things to say.

Reverend Dr. Charles Boyer is the founder of Salvation and Social Justice.

We'll put the website up.

Reverend Dr. Boyer, great to see you again.

- It's great to be here, Steve.

- Let's deal with something that's not a fun topic, but it's a real topic, and it's a painful topic for many.

New Jersey has the six most segregated schools, public schools, in the nation.

A, why?

B, what are we doing?

- Yes, Steve, it's a very shameful history that fortunately, many years ago, many of our legislators saw during the time of Brown versus Board of Education to entrench thoroughly within our constitution to make sure that that would never be the case here in New Jersey.

And so we have the strongest constitution in the nation, which states that the schools cannot be segregated for any reason.

Yet, where we are now, we find ourselves as one of the most segregated school systems in the nation, far more than many Southern school districts.

So it is a painful history.

I, one growing up in this state who has felt that pain and the disadvantages there.

And so it's a shameful history that the state needs to reconcile.

- Lemme play devil's advocate here.

What about, Reverend Dr. Boyer, of people say, you know what, people live where they wanna live, there's kids go to school where they wanna go to school, and you can't force people to do what you want them to do, or anyone wants them to do, and that's just the way it plays out.

White kids go to school in disproportionately white communities, African American, Latino kids, that's the way it is.

Folks think it, may not say it publicly, but doesn't it play out that way?

That it's by choice that people do a lot of this, not by law?

- Well, I agree that we certainly ought to let people do what they wanna do, what I disagree with is that it's by choice.

Folks are forced to go to the school district in which they live, and the state has a very shameful history of redlining, the massive amount of local control which has been given in segregating towns, literally to keep Black and white children separate from each other, specifically making sure that Black and Brown children are not able to access the levels of education.

So we have nearly 600 school districts, which is deliberately done in order to take away choice from Black and Brown communities, from attending some of these other schools.

And so- - Lemme give you an example.

I'm sorry for interrupting.

We live in Montclair, it's a relatively integrated school system.

There's a magnet school system where integration and desegregation happened in the sixties and seventies, there's a busing initiative tied to that.

But the next town over, Glen Ridge, small little town, virtually all white, Montclair kids can't go to school in Glen Ridge.

A Black kid couldn't go to school in Glen Ridge.

Is that by design by the folks in Glen Ridge?

And I only use that as an example.

They just said, well, we're just gonna have our own thing, and you can't come here.

Is that a simplistic explanation or a real one?

- It's a very real, deliberate means in order to keep Black kids away from white kids.

And the state enforces that, because zip code barriers is what keeps us in particular spaces.

So we don't have the choice to send our kids to the next town over.

In many cases... For instance, when I grew up in Plainfield, New Jersey, extremely segregated school system, particularly in the time when I was growing up, I lived not too far from Piscataway, and yet I could not go to the Piscataway schools.

My parents had to ultimately illegally send me to Piscataway High School, but most of my days I came up in a very segregated school system.

- Recent court decision, and you and some other folks brought a case before the courts.

Was a decision made on this, Reverend Dr. Charles Boyer, A, and B, what was that decision?

- Well, it was a decision that basically just stated the obvious.

We knew that the state played a role in segregating the schools, right?

We knew that already, that's the whole point of the case, the power of the case or what should have been a decision, was forcing the state to come to some level of remedy.

Imagine someone breaks into your home, steals all your property, and the outcome of the judgment is, oh, they broke into your house and stole all your property, but there's no remedy in place, there's no repercussions.

That in essence is what the judge did in this case.

And so we continue to advocate that there be remedies to what the state is unconstitutionally doing in enforcing the zip code barriers.

- Reverend Boyer, lemme switch gears.

It's a national issue that obviously has implications across the board.

The United States Supreme Court makes a decision on affirmative action regarding certain institutions of higher learning, Harvard being one of them, saying race can no longer, will no longer be utilized as a factor in determining admission to higher education.

Obviously, that's not just about higher ed.

That has implications pressing across the board.

I don't like using this term, but I'm gonna say it with you, because you and I have honest discussions all the time.

White resentment, meaning to some degree there's white resentment of policies that a disproportionate or a significant number of whites say, hey, wait a minute, enough is enough.

Haven't we gone too far?

Let's just level the playing field, and let merit be the only criteria for admission to wherever, for a job, for college.

You say what to those folks?

- I mean, I say that that is absolutely what privilege and being ahead economically within the justice system, and having every privilege of the system given to you throughout your entire existence, that's what that would lend to you.

Imagine if I were to say to you, we're gonna have a race, and I'm gonna tie you down at the starting line for three quarters of the race, and I'll let you go when I'm almost three quarters of the way through.

Being fair would not be saying, okay, well, now we let you go.

No, we would both have to start in the same place all over again in order for fairness and justice to take place.

Those who were held back would have to be given ground made up.

So you can't hold people in slavery for 200 and something years, and then have disproportionate laws that disproportionately impact them and disadvantaged them, and then all of a sudden say, not even a fifth of the timeframe into that space, and say, all of a sudden, let's just make it fair by not making up ground.

- Reverend, you make a compelling argument.

But the question many ask, folks that I've grown up with, born and raised in Newark, New Jersey, you know the community I grew up in, disproportionately Italian American.

Those folks moved to the suburbs, wherever.

And when they're talking, largely in private, it's like, okay, we understand what the reverend's saying, but when will we ultimately say, you know what, we're gonna start at the same starting line so that we can be judged purely on merit.

When does that come?

- That comes when those who have participated in the disadvantage of others finally equip those who have been disadvantaged with everything that has been stolen from us.

- But for a 7-year-old, 10-year-old, 14-year-old, who happens to be white, their argument would be, well, my kid didn't do that.

- But for instance, you benefit from everything that happens to that point.

Did you inherit anything from your grandparents?

Are you in a home that ultimately you were given down payment assistance from your grandparents?

- See, reverend, you don't wanna go there.

You see, 'cause some of us who had family who came from Italy, Southern Italy, because it was poor, and there were no jobs, and came here, couldn't speak the language.

See, now, they are white.

- No, no, no.

I do wanna go there, because the history of the country - Go there!

- is that you could assimilate to be white, which gave you advantages in the job market, gave you advantages in education, gave you advantages across the board.

I can never assimilate to be white, you can.

And when you first came, you couldn't, but the growing nature of this new class of whiteness allowed people to enter into a privileged class where people of darker hues could never do that.

- And finally, you believe government policies regarding affirmative action and opportunities for those who have been disproportionately historically disadvantaged, that that is the answer.

- Yeah, absolutely, ground has to be made up.

So until populations which have been historically disadvantaged are made right, are made whole, there will always be disadvantages in the system.

- Reverend, could we do this, Reverend Dr. Charles Boyer, founder of Salvation and Social Justice.

I know you're gonna say yes, can we continue this conversation in a different time and get greater depth?

'Cause you never hold back, you never duck anything, and you always say what you think, and you make us think.

Thank you so much, we appreciate it.

- Absolutely, Steve.

Looking forward to it.

- Thanks, my friend.

Stay with us, we'll be right back.

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