Help me Edit: Response to Brookings Report

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:But systemic includes you . . . right?

No.
I am an end-user of the system, and a voter. I can only be held accountable for my choices in voting and how I treat people around me. If the school that will nurture my child has more white people, if the system is such that the schools that will nurture my child have more white people, it is completely pointless to use advocacy energy on shaming me or accusing me of 'unintentionally perpetuating racism.

you are right you are responsible for nothing

nothing you do affects anyone else

clearly nothing learned from the pandemic

I"ll march with you, I'll vote with you, I'll vote for you, I'll vote to pay more taxes so we have healthier roads and healthier schools and a healthier society. I'll vote for affordable housing and public transit and school buses to and from any corner of the city.

I'll pick a school where my kid will be safe and well-educated.

[Anonymous]

Which Ward 4 school would be unsafe for your kids? Which Ward 1 school? Who are these elementary school ninjas?

[Anonymous]

I can’t speak for the DC public school forum but there are many threads in the FCPS forum (formally VA Public Schools) that speak poorly or dismiss schools with high percentages of non-whites (unless they are Asian). It completely reinforces stereotypes of certain schools and populations. Often by parents who do not have kids at these schools. These people drown out parents who have positive experiences at these schools.

[Anonymous]

I see the (possibly fake) race trolls have now come out of the woodwork.

This just highlights a very important limitation of the study: especially on anything that can be tied to race issues, there are posters who seem to troll the site and try to amplify division. That is a form of manipulation that would distort the data.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can’t speak for the DC public school forum but there are many threads in the FCPS forum (formally VA Public Schools) that speak poorly or dismiss schools with high percentages of non-whites (unless they are Asian). It completely reinforces stereotypes of certain schools and populations. Often by parents who do not have kids at these schools. These people drown out parents who have positive experiences at these schools.

Why blame parents? Why not blame the the system for making it challenging for families from a wide variety of backgrounds to get a good education for their children at schools with high percentages of poor kids? When I was a kid, social promotion wasn't the norm in my public schools. If you couldn't perform anywhere near grade level in elementary school or middle school, you weren't promoted. You needed to repeat a grade. Things are different in 2021. In some other rich countries, children who can't perform at grade level are put in special classes where intensive small group work is done until they've caught up. Only when they've caught up can students working far behind grade level be returned to regular classes. Not so in US public schools.

With large class sizes and not enough educators/resources to intervene to help kids who struggle academically in most public schools in this country, or standards for advancement to the next grade before high school, arguably, avoidance of public elementary and middle schools with high percentages of poor kids on the part of UMC families constitutes rational self interest.

[Anonymous]

Again this site astounds by the lack of introspection and the lack of knowledge about public education.

[Anonymous]

possibly fake race trolls? What are we as posters to you? Not human if our opinions are not yours? Some Russian AI doing madlibs to stir up shit on a local website?

[Anonymous]

It's definitely more about class than race. Nice white parents have the privilege to make more "risky" educational choices (high picture schools) than their middle to upper class BIPOC Neighbors feel that they can take.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP.

I agree with the posters that say you should abandon this effort because you sound tone-deaf and a perfect example of white fragility. I am African-American (ADOS) 1st Washingtonian who has lurked on this site for 10 years and I view most of the DCUM posters to be unintentional segregationists. with a heavy sprinkling of bona fide racists.

The Founding Fathers of this country created a system to keep people like me subservient to White people because they believed we were inherently less than. This system was built to last so that even if slavery was abolished, even if Jim Crow was abolished, their effects would continue on. That's how systemic racism works i.e. unintentional acts of the so-called "majority" work in favor to keep the "minority" as lesser. Even though red-lining was stopped in the 80's - its effects linger. Even though Brown ended school segregation, I still felt its effects as a DCPS student attending my segregated elementary school in Columbia Heights in the 80s.

I think what many of us who disagree with you in writing this rebuttal is that two things can both be true - the majority of DCUM posters can be "segregationist" unintentionally and this is a complex problem that is not easily solved.

As an aside, an integrated school is one where the inbound students come from different races. In my opinion, Deal and Wilson are diverse but I don't view them as integrated since the neighborhoods that are considered inbound are not integrated. Diversity does not equal integration but that’s just my opinion.

As for solutions, why can’t Brookings raise awareness to an issue? Why do they have to offer solutions? History has shown us that each time a solution that could have offered equity to African-Americans was floated it was shot down, abandoned or destroyed i.e. 40 acres and a mule or the North's protection during Reconstruction, or the Civil Rights Movement. As a starting point to dismantling this system, one could become aware of the issues so that when solutions are aired - like a move away from neighborhood based schools (since DC neighborhoods are segregated) you fight for it rather than against them.

I get that you are upset they used your site without providing you notice and I understand why you're writing this. While will not agree on this topic, I wish you luck with crafting your rebuttal.

Elevating this PP's perspective again. I really think after a dozen pages of comments, this is still the most important. Other posters have also raised the issue of white fragility and tone deafness and I do think there is a good bit of that going on with your feelings on this, Jeff. I certainly believe that your intentions are good. You spend what is surely a huge amount of time deleting the openly racist content. I appreciate that effort. However, there is no way around the fact that much of the commentary is fueled by veiled racism. If this forum did not exist, those conversations would still exist in other corners of the internet or in small private groups. It feels hollow to claim that because Brookings' methods were not great, that therefore DCUM cannot be painted as racist. It doesn't take academic research to see the racism here loud and clear. Think about all the racist comments you delete. Those same posters are writing other threads, with their same racist mindsets fueling their other comments. One does not turn the racism off when jumping from one board to another. The attitudes permeate all that they do.

It almost feels that you are defending yourself, and that you feel personally offended by Brookings' characterization of the DCUM hive mind as racist. Brookings is not attacking YOU as a person. I wonder if what you might be grappling with is subconscious guilt at the fact that you earn an income from running this site where people are able to participate in continued propping up of a bad system. I don't know if you should feel guilt for that, given that we are nearly all complicit in propping up bad, racist systems unless one works for some antiracism nonprofit or something. For those who would take offense to that - check yourselves. If you work for any place where there are ever any racist actions or historic biased systems that formed the current hierarchy, and you are not publicly (within that org) working to dismantle the system, you are complicit in it. My DH is a Black man and works at a BigLaw firm. He too, is complicit in and compensated by a biased system. Every moment he does not call out the biases in the structure or each microaggression, he is complicit in the system. He makes a choice to be complicit to support his family. We all make those choices. That doesn't make it objectively right, but we all do it. I don't know how to go about fixing these systems without blowing them all up.

I don't say all this to say that you should end DCUM. I appreciate knowing the full depths of how terrible people are as an important gut check for myself. I am glad to know what the rich, racist folks are saying behind closed doors and I also appreciate the helpful things I've learned here as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Which Ward 4 school would be unsafe for your kids? Which Ward 1 school? Who are these elementary school ninjas?

I don’t know the comment you’re referring to, but there are a few elementary schools in Ward 4 and Ward 1 that have had shooting incidents in the neighborhood nearby. It might be a reference to that more than the kids themselves.

[Anonymous]

Well, honestly as others have pointed out, "white fragility" as a concept is both racist towards BIPOC (infantilizing and dehumanizing, see, e.g., John McWhorter) and racist towards white people - so I wouldn't give any credence to the notion that you don't have a right to respond critically to a piece of scholarship that you believe is based on flawed data. But then again, if you do it, keep surgical - they didn't understand the data, and thus, they misrepresented the data.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, honestly as others have pointed out, "white fragility" as a concept is both racist towards BIPOC (infantilizing and dehumanizing, see, e.g., John McWhorter) and racist towards white people - so I wouldn't give any credence to the notion that you don't have a right to respond critically to a piece of scholarship that you believe is based on flawed data. But then again, if you do it, keep surgical - they didn't understand the data, and thus, they misrepresented the data.

Disagree. The concept of white fragility is not racist. Also, John McWhorter does not speak for all BIPOC. The fact that you point out one Black academic with a non mainstream view as proof just shows you falling into the trite racist trope of letting one person's voice speak for all people of their race.

Many white people are pretty darn fragile when it comes to any discussion of race. We have reached a place in society where being called a racist is considered (by whites) worse than the actual impact of the racist behavior (on a BIPOC). This is part of white fragility. Everything in the society is built to protect white comfort.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, honestly as others have pointed out, "white fragility" as a concept is both racist towards BIPOC (infantilizing and dehumanizing, see, e.g., John McWhorter) and racist towards white people - so I wouldn't give any credence to the notion that you don't have a right to respond critically to a piece of scholarship that you believe is based on flawed data. But then again, if you do it, keep surgical - they didn't understand the data, and thus, they misrepresented the data.

Disagree. The concept of white fragility is not racist. Also, John McWhorter does not speak for all BIPOC. The fact that you point out one Black academic with a non mainstream view as proof just shows you falling into the trite racist trope of letting one person's voice speak for all people of their race.

Many white people are pretty darn fragile when it comes to any discussion of race. We have reached a place in society where being called a racist is considered (by whites) worse than the actual impact of the racist behavior (on a BIPOC). This is part of white fragility. Everything in the society is built to protect white comfort.

Huh? Columbia is not mainstream? Nutty. White fragility in practice in large measure is about misogyny -vilifying and silencing woman white or otherwise. Everything is society (including AA society) is about controlling and silencing women - and the AA and the “submit to husband” messaging in parts of the black church is just one example. I don’t want that blood on my hands, either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, honestly as others have pointed out, "white fragility" as a concept is both racist towards BIPOC (infantilizing and dehumanizing, see, e.g., John McWhorter) and racist towards white people - so I wouldn't give any credence to the notion that you don't have a right to respond critically to a piece of scholarship that you believe is based on flawed data. But then again, if you do it, keep surgical - they didn't understand the data, and thus, they misrepresented the data.

Disagree. The concept of white fragility is not racist. Also, John McWhorter does not speak for all BIPOC. The fact that you point out one Black academic with a non mainstream view as proof just shows you falling into the trite racist trope of letting one person's voice speak for all people of their race.

ok, it's not a racist theory, sound like the start of a good argument

Many white people are pretty darn fragile when it comes to any discussion of race. We have reached a place in society where being called a racist is considered (by whites) worse than the actual impact of the racist behavior (on a BIPOC). This is part of white fragility. Everything in the society is built to protect white comfort.

and you follow it up with a generalization based on race and a flat out racist assertion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well, honestly as others have pointed out, "white fragility" as a concept is both racist towards BIPOC (infantilizing and dehumanizing, see, e.g., John McWhorter) and racist towards white people - so I wouldn't give any credence to the notion that you don't have a right to respond critically to a piece of scholarship that you believe is based on flawed data. But then again, if you do it, keep surgical - they didn't understand the data, and thus, they misrepresented the data.

Disagree. The concept of white fragility is not racist. Also, John McWhorter does not speak for all BIPOC. The fact that you point out one Black academic with a non mainstream view as proof just shows you falling into the trite racist trope of letting one person's voice speak for all people of their race.

ok, it's not a racist theory, sound like the start of a good argument

Many white people are pretty darn fragile when it comes to any discussion of race. We have reached a place in society where being called a racist is considered (by whites) worse than the actual impact of the racist behavior (on a BIPOC). This is part of white fragility. Everything in the society is built to protect white comfort.

and you follow it up with a generalization based on race and a flat out racist assertion.

You don't understand the difference between racism and prejudice. When a person in power (in this country that typically means a white person), acts on their prejudices and causes harm to a BIPOC because of their prejudiced beliefs, that is racism (ex: hiring manager not interviewing LaQuanda Washington even though she's got a great resume, but giving an interview to Kelsey O'Connor and Kate Smith). If LaQuanda finds out about it and calls Kelsey or Kate a white b"tch, that is prejudice. LaQuanda has no power in the situation, so her prejudiced action does not cause harm in the same way that the racist action of the hiring manager does.

You can try to dismiss this all day every day, but each volley back only proves the point that white people are fragile AF and can't take being checked. God bless.