ABSTRACT
In spite of the widen ing gap between the rich and the poor, the massive unemployment levels among white and , especially, black youths, and the increasing number of homeless on our nation's streets, there is li ttle r eason to believe that the growing tide of racia l injustice will be stemmed at any time in the immediate future. Nor is there any indication that the issue of racism will be addressed by the Clinton administration as a central
problem in American education. In fact, as the white working class sees its dream of moving up the social and economic ladder i mperi led , it is increasingly coming to view affi rmative action. school integration policies, and the changing nature of OUT national and cultural identity as threats to its own sense of security and possibility Instead of embracing African Americans and other ethnic groups as allies in the struggle to dismantle the master narratives of Eurocent rism with the discourse of a multiracial and multicultu ral democracy, working-class whites have embraced a legacy of institutional and ideological racism that appears to have reached a dangerous threshold. One of the most ominous expressions of this new racism can be found in the collaborative efforts of business and government to commercialize the classrooms of the public schools, further reducing such schools to channeling colonies for the children of poor and minority pa rents. Moreover, there is a corresponding attempt by government officials and corporate interests to develop a schools-for-profit movement that would appeal to the legacy of nativism and racism that propels white flight away from public schools toward tracked, elite private schools. With this in mind, [want to examine the class and racist underpinnings of the ideology that has st ructu red the school-business intersection, focusing more specifically on the recent endeavors of Whittle Communications and their promotion of Channel One and the Edison Project.
