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][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]

It isn't at all strange to not want you or your kid of be an extreme minority in any instance - race, sex, physical ability, SES, etc. It doesn't mean that diversity isn't valued, but I wouldn't want to go to a school that was 99% male or 99% outside my SES status (far below or above) just because it is important to feel like you aren't an outlier. That isn't strange or racist. That is totally normal and healthy. Again, it doesn't mean there isn't a ton of value in being exposed to all kinds of diversity but people (especially kids) often need to feel like they have a secure basis to really learn from it, which comes, in part, from familiarity. I am saying this as someone who went to a school that was probably 90% white with very high SES (where I was on the lower end) until 8th grade and then moved to a school that was about 15% white with a lot more economic diversity. I learned a lot from the experience, but I think moving to a school where I was in the 2% minority both racially and economically would have made the transition very difficult. [/quote]But the thing to remember this is a 2% minority at [i]Banneker[/i], not Ballou.  Not saying that that 2% shouldn't deter you from sending your child but I am arguing that you should check it out first and get more information.  Go to the open house.  Talk to parents and staff.  Apply and go through the process.  Then decide.[/quote]

Im about a decade out before we have to start looking at high schools, but I agree you shouldn’t write a school off based solely on demographics. I just think it’s ridiculous to imply (as several have on the thread in both overt and subtle ways) that people are racist because they don’t like the idea of their kid going to a school where they will be an absolute outlier demographically. Sometimes the benefits of a school outweigh any costs associated with that or you don’t have other choices, but it’s totally normal and fine to feel a least a little uncomfortable about the idea — regardless of what the majority of the population at the school looks like. If I were lower SES and AA (or any other demographic combination), I would probably want a school where my kid was able to associate with at least a significant number of peers that could share those characteristics even if a lot of his other peers don’t.

[/quote]

You are dismissing a school based on race though. I’m the PP with the 5th grader who is one of 3 white kids in a predominantly AA school. We moved from an all white wealthy suburb to DCPS. My child is having a great year and has tons of friends. Had we dismissed the school due to the low percentage of white rich kids, my dc would missed out on an overwhelmingly positive experience. Dismissing based on demographics is dehumanizing to the kids.[/quote]

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