Reply to Do you support greater integration in your child's school and classroom?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP here: I've observed that very few people on these threads are supportive when their school is being rezoned to include more diversity. 
I live in an integrated neighborhood and send my kids to integrated schools (more than just a token or two). Even our close biracial friends, who come over once a week, are struggling with these issues as the kids get older and their daughter is exposed to aggression from some girls who consider her uppity because she has a white boyfriend. I'm reassessing what to do about high school, as are they. 
I'd say my life is far more diverse already than those who are calling me a racist.[/quote]

I’m supportive at the elementary level and we chose our school to be diverse. I like to think of my self as libreral and progressive, but I also struggle with how I feel about it for Jr High and HS. When my home almost got rezoned to a majority minority middle school, my neighbors fought it hard. I did nothing. I didn’t stand up for better integration and I feel guilty. I told myself it was ok because I didn’t support their efforts. Personally I didn’t want to switch schools because the less diverse school is logistically better for my family. I work from home and it is a few blocks away. My fears and hesitation have a lot more to do with class / wealth divide than race.

The things I struggle with and I want to deal with personally while my kids are still small is this - 
1. I know research shows more diverse schools are better for everyone, but I don’t understand how when I hear about opportunity hoarding that my North Arlington neighbors engage in. I have heard such and such is a great school - but then I hear that special programs and activities are dominated by white kids in a school amthat is 70%+ minority. That seems wrong. How is that teaching my kids anything about diversity if their exposure to kids of other races is that “brown kids are poor” or “brown kids aren’t in my advanced classes so they must be less intelligent” or “brown kids get in trouble more”. I grew up in a college town so my school was racially diverse but more socioeconomically homogeneous.

2. To have diversity be valuable, my kids need to actually be friends with kids from different backgrounds. This is hard for me to accept because I don’t want my kids to think it’s an option not to go to a 4yr college. Again I grew up in a college town for a large state school so even the janitor’ kid got some tuition assistance. There were poor kids, but almost everyone planned to go to college and almost everyone had at least 1 parent with a college degree. I did ok picking a college that was well regarded in the region and finding a good career, but I think about the connections my husband had growing up in a town where most dads commute to Wall St. and the colleges he applied to and careers he contemplated. I want my kids exposed to successful, educated people so they have examples of what careers they might want and how to get there.

I have been wanting to talk about this for a while, but I haven’t because I don’t want to seem racist. But obviously I am and I have some hang ups I need to work through and get over for my kids’ sake.

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