Nice White Parents

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In white parents’ defense, they’ve been told so long that diversity was some kind of educational magic bullet. AA families are often complicit in that messaging.

This series is exposing that it’s not nearly so simple.

I've literally never heard this or anything like this expressed. I think it exposes that many MC/UMC white people wish there were "silver bullet" solutions to systemic racism, and so they interpret interventions that way. Then they feel betrayed when it turns out that their magical thinking doesn't work.

Of course the solution was never as simple as "diversity". And please point me to the AA families who are "often complicit" in perpetuating that messaging. Because I've never met any.

The latest clashes over redistricting was all about how diversity would bring all these benefits.

Many people, including Africans Americans, fought for redistricting in the name of diversity as if it was some kind of magic no brainer policy with no downside.

We’ve had decades of arguments for desegregation.

If diversity doesn’t really matter why do so many people fight for it?

Not hard to see why white families get the idea that simply reintegrating is some kind of noble act.

That one fundraiser guy really thought he was helping by bringing a cohort of white families in to bring about diversity.

Without his initiative it’s likely barely any of them would have showed up.

You guys have been slamming him, but I think if he had just communicated better this would have been a success story instead of a warning story.

Your premise makes no sense. Just because diversity isn't a magic bullet doesn't mean it doesn't matter.

And, seriously, you're going to question the benefit of desegregation? In 2020?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Anyone else listening to the new Serial podcast?

It reflects a lot of the thinking on this forum and what's going on in MoCo, for example, with its boundary study that will likely not result in any change. The first two episodes really underscore the tension of white liberal parents talking and pushing for reforms (often over the voices of POC) and then not actually walking the talk because it will disadvantage their own children...

Other thoughts?

Yes my thought is this poor reporter will shake her head and laugh at her naïveté once her own kid reaches middle school if not earlier

It reminds me of the guy in Montgomery Co who wrote a book about this same topic and then when it came to his own kids he too selected like most other white parents

[Anonymous]

Schools are more integrated than they used to be in much of the DC area (excluding DC, PG and North Arlington) and that is a good thing. But I think before the social engineers try to fashion a broader 1970s-style forced busing, they are going to have to acknowledge honestly the difficult experience of the many white students who were bullied by blacks and the many black students who were insulted by whites when some systems like PGPCS integrated.

There has not been an honest reckoning of that era, yet it shaped the attitudes of an entire generation of parents, many of whom still have kids in school.

[Anonymous]

littlehouse wrote:My child went to this school during this time. I'm familiar with the people and the events. It's funny to me that a lot of talk here is "if you listened to the podcast, you'd understand". But the podcast itself is subjective too, I suppose all reporting is.

I've never been on a school tour with even majority white parents. NYC public system is 15% white. There are a couple of white neighborhoods were you'd see tours like this .. carroll gardens, upper east side, Tribeca. It's a tiny percentage. I get that the podcast host lives in a super white Brooklyn neighborhood, but that's highly unusual and she should have said so.

I also wrote a letter about a middle school that was being built back when my kids were in grade school. Like in this case, it took 5 years (longer) and I didn't send my kids to that school, because they were no longer middle school aged. I wonder if someone will call me when I'm 90 to ask about this, I remember my kids weren't in middle school anymore.

I remember the fundraising event at the French Cultural Services building. It was a fundraiser for all the French dual language schools in NYC. There were about a half dozen at the time. Not for this school specifically. Parents were invited, but this wasn't really a parent thing. I didn't go. It was for rich ladies who love Paris to give money for french language instruction - presumably to the poors in Brooklyn. I know I'm happy to take their money. Easier than selling wrapping paper.

More about that foundation here: https://frenchculture.org/about-us/press-room/4889-campaign-dual-language-nyc-public-schools

(And let's take a moment here to acknowledge the French govt is playing the long game. I hand it to them.)

The school in 2015 was about to be closed. DOE employees are union, with pretty good salaries. Jillian, the principal, was making about 180k. There are Assistant Principals, Parent Coordinators, Guidance Counselors, Nurse, Safety Agent, Building Maintenance Staff all these people who are in a building if there is 100 kids or 3000. Teachers too, but that's scaleable. When enrollment is 100, the DOE is paying sometimes 30k a student and it makes no sense.

The podcast likes to focus on the 50k for the teacher and books, but a lot of money was being spent there for kids who ended up not graduating from high school. Even last year, the graduation rate was 75%. The high school directory is online. You can see the data.

I agree in general that PTAs should step back, but Principals need to step up. I'd be happy if PTAs were abolished. But I know parents are doing their best and they are unpaid and untrained. They also really don't make budget decisions. I know the press likes stories about parents fighting over PTA crumbs, but the Principal had a budget of north of $3mm in 2015.

There are about a dozen French dual language programs, but there are hundreds of Spanish and Mandarin programs. There are also Arabic, Japanese, Polish, Korean, Russian .. you name it .. dual language programs. In Brooklyn, the French speaking community is largely Caribbean (like me) but also kids from 27 African countries. SIS (called BHS now) was started with families from PS58, the one French Dual Language program in Carroll Gardens, the white zone where the podcast host lives. This "whiteness" is hard to shake, even now when it's mostly Caribbean. Then again, they are the people who used their agency to make it happen. Did they sound bad sometimes, sure. There probably were bad parents. Most were nice and made things happen. Not just French,but also sports and arts.

But again, when that Turkish/Yemini girl was learning French in a drama class, the host wonders if she wouldn't be happier in a arabic program. I think it leaves people to think there wasn't an arabic program at a school just a couple blocks away. There is! I'm not sure what the motivations were for the parents and the student to pick this school, but I don't second guess them. Would that little Chinese boy at her kid's school been happier in a Mandarin program? She doesn't seem to think so. But who are we to say. Parents make the best decisions they can for their kids, that includes immigrant parents.

That play by the way, was great, about refugees. It won awards. Here it is, being preformed for another fundraiser. (performative? sure. but easier than selling candy and the kids loved it.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0n4ikL1glE

I look forward to future episodes. I'm sure it will cover the Diversity Plan. Where white parents with kids in private schools said that that language screens were racist and so you couldnt test into BHS anymore as a Francophone. So rich white parents got those seats, the black francophones did not, and the school is whiter than ever post-Diversity Plan.

To put a picture to some of this, here's a video about the school during this time. Is it perfect? No. Did people mess up? Yes? Were people trying? Yes. Did the principal and admin mismanage some of this? YES, most of it.

Most white parents don't send their kids to public schools in NYC. One day, I'd like to see a Nice White Parents about those people - the ones who didn't even try.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6vxEyslut8

Bravo! Another Brooklynite here, and I also think the podcast is offering a very biased picture. I’d love to see a disclosure of where the NYTimes people send their kids to schools.

[Anonymous]

I listened to the podcast and I got the gist that while minority parents want the integration, they do not want or resent what comes with it. So, why aim for integration if they don't want what makes the other schools stand out? I am a poc but certainly do not want my children in a low income/ low socio-economic school. And I don't care if people call this attitude racism, prejudice, or what have you.... I want my child to have the best education experience possible within my means.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Schools are more integrated than they used to be in much of the DC area (excluding DC, PG and North Arlington) and that is a good thing. But I think before the social engineers try to fashion a broader 1970s-style forced busing, they are going to have to acknowledge honestly the difficult experience of the many white students who were bullied by blacks and the many black students who were insulted by whites when some systems like PGPCS integrated.

There has not been an honest reckoning of that era, yet it shaped the attitudes of an entire generation of parents, many of whom still have kids in school.

I heard a hypothesis by Malcolm Gladwell that what needs to happen is that teachers need to integrate first. First adults need to accept integration amongst themselves, figure out how to live with it, and learn some ways to make it work. Once that work is done, then it makes sense to work on figuring out borders and bussing to integrate children. The problem is that we are expecting to start with the children, and too often leaving them unprotected and vulnerable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:After the first episode, I've learned that in the 60s white parents of preschoolers wrote letters to the NYC board of education saying they wanted a new school to be built near them, so their kids could go to school with black kids who lived three blocks away.

But 5 years later when the school was actually built, they didn't send their kids to the new school for several different reasons. The kids in the school were rough behavior wise; their reading scores were low, and the white parents wanted their kids to go to a progressive private school instead.

Is that the extent of it?

That’s the second episode... and only one parent actually visited the school and as the narrator rightly pushed on, the above “behavior and academic” tropes are inherently racist.

Nope, they're inherently natural.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Has anyone written Nice Asian Parents yet? Or Competitive Indian Parents? Or Demanding Russian Parents? Or are they exempt from the consequences of their parenting, which is exactly the same as UMC white people?

The difference is that they’re faaaaar less hypocritical about it. They don’t go on and on about how black lives matter or post those “no matter where you’re from you’re welcome here” signs in front of their house or make their “liberal” political views a personality trait only to turn around and shelter their kids from poor minorities like white people in say, Bethesda or N Arlington do.

One thousand times yes. Its the hypocrisy.

[Anonymous]

It’s hypocritical to whites when you really mean whites and Asians because you think it’s not PC to challenge anyone other than whites.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think there is a difference between wanting to give your kids a great life and prioritizing them over all others. You can both want your kids to be happy and thriving but understand that “wanting the best for my kid” often comes at the expense of other kids. I want my kids- and all the kids- to be happy, thriving individuals. So no.. I don’t “prioritize” my kids if I know it will detrimentally impact others. My kids can have something less shiny, less perfect... if it means that more kids will have something similar.

Yes, this. I am not so selfish that I need to make sure my middle-class white kids get the absolute best of everything at other kids' expense. They already have a ton of advantages. If it enables schools to be more effective in improving the life trajectories of kids of color, poor kids, other kids who really need it, then I'm totally fine with my kids having longer bus rides or not getting as focused attention from the best teachers or whatever the fear is. I love my kids, but I don't believe they deserve anything more than any other kids (and if we can't get all the kids the very best education, then there are probably a lot of other kids who should be in line before mine to be prioritized.)

This should be a basic, common sense position to take for anyone who believes in common decency and a just society, but somehow it isn't? I'm really troubled and disturbed by the way we normalize the idea that it's okay to prioritize our own kids at the expense of everyone else's kids. It seems pretty darn immoral to me.

I think you’re being a hypocrite.

If you: take vacations, buy books and educational toys, buy organic healthy food, cook healthy dinners every night, read to your kids when young, send them to summer camps, teach them skills like swimming, skiing, tennis, golf, etc. and saving for college, you’re giving them advantages other kids don’t have.

I mean, I'm not sure hypocrite is the word you're looking for exactly, but if you mean that we should be donating more of our money and spending less of it on our own family, then I agree with you. We donate a fair amount but not as much as we should. We spend more on our own kids than we should. We just look at it as a spectrum, and draw a hard line at opposing things that are for the greater good in order to benefit our own kids. And we don't kid ourselves that prioritizing our own kids over others makes us good parents or good people.

Congratulations! The ultimate white savior 🙌 🙏

[Anonymous]

^ refer you whites

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s hypocritical to whites when you really mean whites and Asians because you think it’s not PC to challenge anyone other than whites.

No, I mean liberal whites. No one is faster to get up on their high horse faster.

[Anonymous]

^^

Especially a certain former board of Education member and parent of a former Student Board of Education member - both have students who already graduated from MCPS and both advocating for change.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s hypocritical to whites when you really mean whites and Asians because you think it’s not PC to challenge anyone other than whites.

Exactly.
Let the Asians, who are discriminated on the basis of being a robotic monolith that only cares about academics and not about "diversity" or "equity" or "a well-rounded experience", hear this podcast and lets hear their opinions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s hypocritical to whites when you really mean whites and Asians because you think it’s not PC to challenge anyone other than whites.

Exactly.
Let the Asians, who are discriminated on the basis of being a robotic monolith that only cares about academics and not about "diversity" or "equity" or "a well-rounded experience", hear this podcast and lets hear their opinions.

Asian person here. 🙋🏻‍♀️ I chose a home in a Title I school district for my kids. I’ve been very happy with our school so far but compared to other neighborhoods I’m sure lots of “nice white parents” think they’re not as good.