Reply to Integration and DC Schools -- A high priority? Yay or nay?

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Reply to "Integration and DC Schools -- A high priority? Yay or nay?"

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[quote=Anonymous]I don't know what we're disagreeing about - perhaps the percentage and number of black DC residents that have incomes above median of $60,000?

Those are real people, and just talking off the cuff, they are probably roughly half of the black population, like 43 percent of DC. So we've got what, 700,000 people, 49 percent of 43 percent above 60K income, about 150,000 black people in DC with a household income above $60,000.  That's a lot of people. Too many to be invisible.

On the other hand, it's only about 20 percent of DC residents. Another about 20 percent of DC residents are white people with incomes above $168,000.

So are we talking about middle income black households existing? Are we talking about very large race-sorted income gaps? It seems like both. If both types of households think of themselves as somewhere in the "middle class" but there are large disparities, I can see how the perceptions mix.

My household is two federal employees with long tenure, two DCPS kids. We have a rowhouse and an old car. This does not feel like a TV show with Robin Leach. But we earn like $300,000 a year.  If we earned $70,000 between us, I am sure that we would do just fine.

Frankly we live on little and save most of our income. But we probably wouldn't own the house and frugality wouldn't be an option and college would be determined by need-based aid and retirement would be late and pension-driven, not savings-driven.

On schools, we are choosing DCPS because we think it's good enough for our kids and valuable experience for them. Based on our backgrounds, we do not want them to acculturate to Stone Ridge or Gonzaga or whatever. It's cultural preference, though of course it's great that we are only paying taxes to send our kids to school. I can entirely understand the reverse, families where exposure to the opportunities available through St. Anselms or NCS can be a generational human capital gain.

So each of us is differently situated. And I'm sorry some folks feel invisible. And I guess I don't quite know what invisible means? Does it mean that as a white person I act like every black person around me has dramatically lower income than me? I hope that I don't manifest that. Mostly I just go to work and home, museums or kid sports on the weekend, so I hope I'm not demeaning someone on the Metro or bus with a look or some kind of misstatement. I hope that I don't mistreat the people I meet even if we argue a little rough here enjoying the luxury of being anonymous.[/quote]

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