Reply to Do you consider race when looking for a neighborhood to live in?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My perspective--

I see it as my job to prepare my children for tomorrow's world. Tomorrow's world is increasingly brown. We are white and have a comfortable HHI, Ivy League education, and I didn't want my kids raised like I was-- knowing hardly any black people or Hispanic people.

So we chose a close in diverse neighborhood in NE DC. We send our kids to a very diverse charter school. By choice and by happenstance, because where we love makes this easy-- 
- our kids' pediatricians are AA women running their own practice
- our kids' dentist is an AA woman 
- our kids' principle is an AA woman
- our kids' music teacher is an AA man
- and of course our kids' President is an AA man

We have neighbors who are gay married men.

Diversity and tolerance are core values in our lives. We chose a place that helps us live that, and that helps prepare our children for the diverse, vibrant world they will be living in.[/quote]

my question

How old are your kids?  You chose a charter, which tends to draw in a specific group of people. Would you send your kids to your local NE HS?

Living in a diverse 'hood and taking your children to educated experts isn't the same as having them attend the local school.

Diversity means different things to different people.

[/quote]

Not PP, but I don't think valuing diversity means sending your kids to failing schools.  I'm AA and no way would I send my child to many schools in DC.  You have to balance valuing diversity with other things, like the importance of a solid education.  [b]Each family has to decide where to draw the line re: that balance.  For my family, it's buying in a neighborhood that is diverse, but also zoned for Deal/Wilson.[/b]  For PP, it's a diverse neighborhood and charter school, and patronizing services staffed/owned by PoC when possible.  This sounds like a good and totally reasonable balance to me.[/quote]

A good reminder that a lot of families don't have many options.  In this metro area, household income is the predominant factor - families will live in the best possible place they can; that may be where the schools are bad, crime is high and amenities are low, but we shouldn't be quick to assume it's because they don't care about their kids (or, the favorite DCUM mantra - don't value education).

And then, in many other places redlining is still happening under the radar.  Real estate agents won't show houses and banks won't approve loans in certain areas for qualified minorities, so even solid middle class people settle and concentrate in lower income areas.  Not because they dislike living among whites, or don't care about their kids, but because those are the best options available.

For our AA family with a young son, we see diversity as his best chance at thriving for reasons too many to enumerate here.  Germane to this discussion, I admit that we feel as nervous about Chevy Chase (where we've tentatively looked at houses) as we do about some areas of the city where residents and schools are still mostly black. Reading DCUM for the last few years have only solidified reservations about certain people in certain areas, and I'm glad we have options.[/quote]

I'm the PP you're responding to.  Thanks for pointing out that redlining still occurs--I'd commented upthread that it occurred in the past.

We also looked in CC during our housing search recently.  My husband does a lot of training outdoors for triathlons, and I wasn't keen on the idea of him running through CC on a regular basis alone as a black male (he was fine with it, though).  However, I think it's a great area, so I think at the end of the day we would've been fine there (although we ended up moving to a different NW DC neighborhood).

We also have a young child and have thought about all the things you allude to in your post re: importance of diversity.  Good luck in your search.[/quote]

We have an AA couple + kids on our block in CC.  I'm a white person, so I don't get it 100%, but I think I understand the concerns (fear of random stops by the locals cops, being a suburban pioneer, how will the other kids treat my kids, etc.), and I have no doubt that they are rational.  But in honesty I don't think you would be treated significantly differently than other neighbors.  (Its not like we're all hosting daily evening neighborhood BBQs and hosting swingers evenings.)[/quote]

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