A new batch of Minnesota test scores were released this week. Overall it sounds like good news with 75% passing the new test. But it gets interesting as the media starts talking about the various demographics (PDF). I was listening to NPR and they started talking about the various numbers, pointing out that 82% of white students passed, while every other ethnic group saw lower numbers (Black: 41%, Hispanic: 48%, Asian: 63%, American Indian: 55%).

What does race have to do with test scores? The gap between whites and other races is startling. My initial thought was that race has nothing to do with the results, that it’s more likely socio-economic factors. Meaning if you’re black and failed the test, you weren’t more likely to fail because you were black, but because blacks are more likely to be socio-economically disadvantaged, i.e., live in poor areas and attend poor schools. It’s generational poverty. But as I’m looking into it, it seems the black-white test score gap exists regardless of socio-economic factors.

Which is kind of disturbing. What’s causing that gap? Is it institutional racism? Is it more overt racism? I don’t know. My quick Google search and 20 minutes of reading is hardly enough to even begin making me look stupid, never mind coming close to any answers.

Segregation ended more than 50 years ago but a Mississippi town just held its first integrated prom. Charleston, Miss. has held separate, privately funded proms for black students and white students. Going back to 1997 actor Morgan Freeman, who lives in Charleston, has offered to pay for an integrated prom. This year school officials finally took him up on the offer.

The prom went off without incident and the school is planning to do it again next year. It’s a major step forward even though “some white parents wouldn’t let their kids go, and some insisted on holding a private prom for their kids.”

Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve never lived in the South and don’t really understand it, but—what?! This is kind of insane. I’m glad to see some forward progress, but taking until 2008 to hold your first interracial prom? Wow. And a bigger wow that some parents wouldn’t let their kids go.

For anyone who doesn’t think racism is still firmly entrenched in society, there you go. (And it’s worth pointing out that I’m not saying racism is only in the South. It’s just more obvious in the South. A black woman once said she’s rather live in the South where you know who hates you, as opposed to the North where people act nice to hide the fact that they hate you.) (link via jonforeman)