Reply to Parents of Black Children, Please Let Me Know Your Thoughts

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[quote=Anonymous]We faced this dilemma when we moved from Silver Spring to Potomac.  I have three girls and we moved for better schools and I would do it again.  I don't think there was much of a real racial dynamic in my oldest's (we moved during third grade) friend groups and she integrated well when moving in ES.  Over time, she became self conscious because her preferred friend group was pretty girly and she became quite conscious of her hair.  One girl even had a 'hair salon' birthday party.  In sixth grade, one of the teachers moved her to the back of the room because others couldn't see around her hair. That kind of thing.  My other two kids have different personalities and I think were much less conscious about this/it seems not to have come up much, or at least they didn't report it.

My second kid did face some racial issues in ES-- it was really just one unhappy kid who was targeting lots of people for whatever issue she could come up with so while it was racial taunts at my kid, it was other types of bullying for other kids.

Over time, though, two things happened.  First, the schools became a bit more diverse moving into MS and HS.  So you might look at that. If this is just an ES issue, I wouldn't think twice about it, frankly.  As my kids moved into MS and especially HS, their friend group became much more Black.  They still have a diverse set of friends, but there were definitely more Black kids included in their inner circle.

The other thing that happened, though, and I think it's related, is that going into MS and especially HS, race became front and center of a lot of the discourse.  Like, the kids TALK about race a lot.  In our society today, much more than I remember growing up, people just talk a lot more about race.  And all three of them talked about being uncomfortable with those conversations in HS because they were in the minority.  Things like teachers asking them (not in so many words but clearly in spirit) to represent the Black perspective.  Lots of conversations in history and english classes where they felt like other kids in the class were looking at them.  (Remarkably, all three of them said that kids in their US history class speculated about how much they would have brought at a slave auction.  I think there must be a part of the class where they talk about shade of complexion as one of the inputs into the price of the slave and all three said that set kids in their class thinking.)  One plays sports and says kids on OTHER teams have yelled slurs (which is a different thing that what you're asking) but that their own coach didn't really handle it well maybe due to inexperience-- she felt like the coach didn't protect them.

So I don't have good advice.  In all, 1. I'm happy my kids went to better performing schools than they otherwise would have.  2. I think the kid's personality might matter a lot in terms of how sensitive they are to certain things.  3. As an ES parent, you're probably overly focused on ES dynamics and demographics and that's a short time and less of a big deal I think.  Look at the MS and HS experiences.  4. Over time, all three of their friend groups became much more Black.  Not just because the HS was more diverse than the ES but I think because the emphasis on race and other social dynamics nudged them in that direction as they grew older.[/quote]

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