Reply to Banneker v. Wilson

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]When I first moved to DC a couple of years ago, I was told that SWW and Banneker are the top DCPS high schools and that I should try to get my children into one of those schools when the time came. I assumed they had similar demographics. Last year, I found out that it was not so. Banneker, which is obviously an excellent school judging from the scores, is 99% minority. I am black, so that doesn't change anything for me. I am wondering if white students would rather not go to a majority black/latino high school? For what it's worth, the white students are a minority at Wilson too. To PP, the sizes of the schools differ greatly, Wilson's facilities are newer (but there are some changes down the pike for Banneker's facilities as well), I believe the admission process is also different. A family friend's son attends and he says that it's extremely challenging and there's a lot of homework, but he believes he is receiving a stellar education. [/quote]

There's been a lot of discussion about this over the years on DCUM, and I think that the lack of white kids at Banneker is due to a couple of factors.  This includes [b]racism, in the form of whites being intimidated to be an extreme minority. [/b] But a little more complexly, I think it also involves a degree of [b]white privilege, with white parents actually not thinking their kids "need" to do the really hard work at Banneker, because they'll be "just fine" at Wilson.[/b]  Seen from a different angle, white parents in DC have different paths to push their kids forward, without having to do the awkward work of integration and a punishing amount of homework.  Basically very similar to the reasons they turn their noses up at KIPP.  Lastly, I do think Banneker is basically and HBCU high school, and my guess is the school culture there just doesn't go out of its way to try to accommodate the worries of white families.  I don't get the sense it's an open door there[b] laying down the red carpet for the exaggerated amount of hand-holding white families might demand.[/b]  (Which, I don't really have an issue with myself.)  [/quote]

^^ apologies for the word salad. the internet has destroyed my prose. [/quote]

I understand that the bolded statements, which can only be harsh caricatures of your worst projections on white parents' thoughts (they're not the result of a survey), are seen as progressive pragmatic woke awareness and activism. This horrifies me. I used to identify with that, progressive, pragmatic, aware and a wannabe activist, before the word woke existed. Now I'm just disgusted by posts like this.

Not wanting to be the extreme minority isn't racism.

[/quote]

I have a child who is an extreme minority. It’s been overwhelmingly positive. I’m not sure why folks worry about it. I think they worry about their child being beaten up or held back, which in our experience has been the furthest from the truth. (FWIW, kid is in 5th grade)[/quote]

Yep.  Being unsure of how your kid will do as an extreme minority or nervous about the new situation is totally normal.  But to say "Banneker is per se impossible for my child because it's only 1% white" is ... racist.  [/quote]

I would argue that being nervous about your child being in a new school is normal. If you are nervous about your kid being the only white kid, I think you need to really think about what your stereotypes are. Do you think minority kids are more violent and mean, more prone to bullying and behavioral problems? There are many unfounded assumptions in being nervous about your kid being an only. Folks need to examine that worry more closely.[/quote]

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