Racial Diversity at The Washington School of Ballet

[Anonymous]

WSB’s SE campus is much more diverse and the kids seem to fare equally well in Nutcracker role placement. How inconvenient is the SE campus for you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:OP here — thank you for the responses. I understand the racial barriers in classical ballet generally for sure, but it was still a bit jarring to see.

why is it jarring?

Unless you’re a Black person or person of color I don’t think you will understand. I assume you’re neither since you asked the question. Even though something is known more generally, it can still look jarring once it’s right in your face. And honestly, a ballet school in DC in 2022 that doesn’t have decent URM representation in its classes tells me a lot.

I'm a person of color. As an Arab and a Muslim I've been called a terrorist to my face. Honestly who gives a sh** about racial diversity in ballet school? I take my kids to ballet lessons in Arlington. Other than one Black girl, all the other kids are white. My kids don't care. We don't care. Its exhausting for every little thing to be analyzed with a racial lens. Can we all calm down a bit. People are more than their race and a lot of problems in the US can be resolved in a race neutral manner even though they disproportionately help people of color. This over emphasis on victimhood is exhausting. I am shia Muslim and grew up in the Arab world. Our places of worship are bombed. My husband is Palestinian and grew up under apartheid and occupation. Yet I don't go around telling my kids they are victims of discrimination every day. I teach them the facts. I teach them the history of racism, colonialism, sectarianism and then I move on. God living here is so exhausting. Its more exhausting than growing up in a place where your actual life is at risk and you can be jailed for simply who you are. I am seriously considering moving back if this over emphasis on race continues.

Many of us come from war-torn regions, PP and have personally experienced racism. You clearly have younger children who have no professional ballet aspirations. You HAVE to understand that at the teen pre-professional level, getting passed over for the best roles because of considerations other than skill, means not progressing in those skills, missing out on auditions, and not being picked for the next step in your career. When your kids grow up and experience discrimination as an obstacle to education and professional advancement, you WILL care. You're just not in that space yet. You might be a social conservative who thinks this is all snowflake wokeness, and a lot of complaints on DCUM are in that category, but some of them are not. Learn to differentiate between the two, and also keep in mind that constant "minor" other-ing is a sign that more serious discrimination will be normalized.

- Asian.

No I’m not a social conservative. I tend to be on the left on most issues. Given the fact that I have experienced discrimination personally in the workplace as a female nonwhite attorney I am very familiar with the costs of racial discrimination. The problem I am having is with the constant insistence of analyzing everything through a racial lens and reducing complex human beings to their race. It’s exhausting and it’s not going to end well.

YES! I agree with both of your posts.

I am a non-White female who works in STEM, so I am well aware of being the ‘other’.

My kids are non-White, and non-East Asian. They take a higher level Math class where EVERY other child in the class is either East Asian, and to a lesser extent, South Asian. My kids are the only kids of their racial background in this class.

Should I take them out of the class because they don’t see themselves ‘represented’? I mean, I guess I could, but it would do them a disservice.

OP, if your kid is being mistreated by the other kids, or if other dancers are hurling racial slurs, then by all means, that needs to be addressed. Otherwise, the Arab PP is completely correct in what she is saying. If the school is a good school otherwise, then it’s silly to rule it out because there aren’t enough kids of a certain race attending.

[Anonymous]

Anyone else uncomfortable with the NW and SE campus divide? Feels like a lot like segregation, especially since so many of the staff and teachers of color are all assigned to the SE campus as well. I'd like to see more diversity at both campuses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Anyone else uncomfortable with the NW and SE campus divide? Feels like a lot like segregation, especially since so many of the staff and teachers of color are all assigned to the SE campus as well. I'd like to see more diversity at both campuses.

Wait, so you want teachers of color to commute farther so that your white kid can ‘see more diversity’ in NW? If you want your child to ‘see more diversity’, you could always move to SE.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Anyone else uncomfortable with the NW and SE campus divide? Feels like a lot like segregation, especially since so many of the staff and teachers of color are all assigned to the SE campus as well. I'd like to see more diversity at both campuses.

Wait, so you want teachers of color to commute farther so that your white kid can ‘see more diversity’ in NW? If you want your child to ‘see more diversity’, you could always move to SE.

Nice assumption but we're not white and we're in NW. The teachers of color teach at studios all over MD and NW DC, but only seem to be at the SE campus for TWSB. So just because we're black we should goto the segregated black campus?