Reply to My daughter is the only white girl in her grade: ask me anything

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous](1) How frankly do you discuss issues of race with your child? Have you openly talked about the fact that your kid is the only one in class with pink skin? (or whatever shade you consider to be "white") What does your child make of it?

(2) You say maybe it would be nice for the AA boys to see some one in the school who looks like them who is a teacher instead of a janitor. Well surely that would be nice for your kid too. Have you talked with your child about the fact that the teachers are mostly white, like your kid, but the vast majority of the students are not? What messages do you think your kid takes from that?

(3) When you socialize, at work or at home, does your child see you interacting with people of other races and does your kid do so? Or is this something your kid only does at school?

(4) Is your child friends with white neighborhood children who do not attend the neighborhood school? Have discussions of that--the fact that these other kids do not go to the school--come up?

(5) Do you feel your child would be comfortable talking with you if in fact there was exclusion or bullying due to race?

(6) Lets say you decide to remove your kid from this school at some point and go to another school for better academic rigor or some other reason, where your kid is suddenly not the only white kid. Will this be discussed? What possible lessons will your kid take from this?

I'm asking these questions with no agenda; I am genuinely just curious. I am not sending my kid to my neighborhood school but this has nothing to do with race and more to do with wanting a different educational philosophy and teaching style (the school we choose is still diverse and as a white kid my kid will be in the minority but less so than in the neighborhood school). We talk very frankly about race in my house as the kids notice it and are curious about all sorts of things. [/quote]

I really appreciate the questions. I will do my best to answer them.

1) We discuss race pretty frankly with DD. [b]I am actually not sure that she is aware that she's "the only white girl" in her class and am hesitant to ask her because I don't want to make it a thing if it's not already a thing. [/b]She is aware of racism, and as I mentioned early in this thread, she is aware that she looks different from some of her friends and has a different cultural heritage than others. She is aware of historical racism from things she's learned in school and things we've discussed at home (civil rights movement - schools like to focus on Ruby Bridges because I think they think Ruby Bridges is more relatable for kids than other civil rights figures). I don't really think there's much to be gained by pointing out the difference that she's not already thinking about. Maybe I am wrong.

2) We haven't talked about the racial makeup of the staff. I try to bring things up with her in context, and there has not been a context for this. Maybe I am wrong there as well.

3 & 4) We have multi-racial friends - our friend group is actually a lot more diverse than her school. I admit that the biggest percentage of my socializing with people of color happens at work, and she does not see that because I don't/can't take her to work with me. But yes, we socialize with a racially and ethnically diverse group of people outside her school friend group. She's got friends who go to charter schools, but all her friends who are in DCPS go to their IB school. We haven't discussed the racial makeup of their schools. The kids who live(d) in our school boundary who don't go to the school have largely moved to other parts of the city/other states. So she knows that they moved and go to a different school now. To the best of my knowledge, those school decisions weren't motivated by racial factors, so that is not something we discuss in that context.

5) She has been comfortable talking to me about instances when she's had a problem with another kid and has been candid about why she believes that the problem exists. She has also mentioned feeling left out in PK4 because she didn't speak Spanish like her friends. At that time, we talked about how her friends speak Spanish at home, how everyone in her school takes Spanish, and how this is an opportunity for her to learn to speak Spanish with her friends. I also pointed out that having friends who are native speakers is very helpful if she is struggling with learning in Spanish, and how she can also help with English words for kids who speak little English.

6) I would discuss the racial differences between her old school and her new school with her if it were contextually appropriate or if she asked. I don't know that I would point it out otherwise.

Overall, my way of handling this has been not to put too fine a point on the racial differences and address them as they come up, if they come up, in contextually relevant ways. Kids are going to have differences, and I don't want her to attribute differences to race alone, mostly because I highly doubt that that will be the only (or even the main) explanation. She is 6 years old, and her experience right now has not been affected by this issue, which is why I started this thread: I see new parents being very concerned about this, and for us, it just has not been the tricky situation that many new parents seem to assume it will be.[/quote]

Are you for real? You honestly do not think that your child can tell the difference between her and the other kids? Kids see skin color even when they are toddlers.

You are deluding yourself that you are somehow being super liberal, or open minded, or awesome, or whatever.  The other kids who are there - their parents may not have any choice where they send their kid to school - income and ability to move may hamper their school choices but it doesn't mean that they would not take the chance to move to a better performing school, a school with less FARMs rates, a school that was actually diverse.  The other parents are likely to look at you and not think you are some beacon of open minded liberalness but are just dumb for making such a bad choice for your child when you have the privilege and ability to make a good school choice.

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