Reply to Banneker v. Wilson

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[quote=Anonymous][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]

huh?  the bolded are extremely well known characteristics of UMC white parents in DC. You see it here on DCUM all the time -- "my white kid can go to any school and will be fine."  and in some respects, that is a correct assessment of white privilege, and can have a positive effect because it makes parents less nervous about integrating schools.  and yeah, we are helicoptery and expect school administration to "listen to our concerns."[/quote]

Huh?? First, there is contradiction between the explanations you give. Second, those aren't "extremely well-known characteristics," they're unfounded stereotypes. Congratulations for endorsing and internalizing them.[/quote]

Here -do some reading:

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/10/gentrification-schools/408568/

https://www.blackenterprise.com/gentrified-neighborhoods-segregated-schools/[/quote]

Thanks. I'm pretty sure I come across and read that Atlantic article once a year. Did you read the Black Enterprise article yourself, though?
[quote]The Hechinger Report has written before about gentrifying neighborhoods and non-gentrifying schools. But it’s [b]not a new phenomenon, nor a racial one. [/b]When my husband and I returned to Brooklyn after living in the suburbs, we opted not to send our kids to the local public schools—I homeschooled them instead.

I know plenty of black families in my neighborhood who sent their kids to schools outside their district, to elite private schools, Catholic schools, or even to schools as far away as New Jersey or Riverdale, New York—all to ensure the best education they could for their children.[/quote]

I'm not sure what you think it supports within this conversation.[/quote]

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