Reply to Banneker v. Wilson

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote]
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PP here. I'm not dismissing the school - again, my kid is a decade away from even looking at high school. I am dismissing the idea that it is racist to be uncomfortable about being a 1 or 2% minority in a school or anywhere else. Would you call an AA parent racist because they were uncomfortable with the notion of sending their child to a school where they might be the only one of their race? Or what about sending your son to dance camp for a summer where he was the only male? That doesn't mean you think females are bad or dance is bad or white people are bad or whatever. It means you don't want your kid to feel like an outlier, which is particularly challenging in the teenage years. People have a natural, perfectly reasonable desire to find groups that they are familiar with - you know, it kept humans alive for millenia, so kind of hard to fight that whole evolution thing. Also as I stated previously, there could be other attributes at a school that make the trade off of being an extreme minority worth it - like a great curriculum, school culture, cost, etc. I'm not saying the school isn't good or that people shouldn't look at sending their children there. I'm just saying it is totally ridiculous to assume that because a parent is uncomfortable with their child being a 1% minority  and actually want diversity in a student body that they think that black youth are dangerous or less than or whatever else.

Again, I went to a high school where I was the minority racially. The school was great and I had plenty of friends in both races, but I do think it would have been a harder transition if I was a 1% minority rather than a 15% minority at a time in my life where "feeling different" can be very isolating and potentially dangerous to mental health. [/quote]

My point is people need to think about why you think it is uncomfortable being in the 1%? Skin color or income are two variable of many that make up a person. We share more with people than those two variables. Are those the two variables you focus on when you make friends? Or others? Do you only prefer to hang out with people in your race and income? I like people with shared interests. I was also the only woman and one of few Americans in my graduate program. I guess that’s why I didn’t worry about the demographic of my kid’s new DCPS school. Again, one is only an outlier in those two categories...two categories out of many.
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I'm not saying it is the only relevant thing to consider when picking a school or looking at a relationship, but it is still a relevant factor no matter where you rank it on your list of priorities. Being the only one or a handful of the only ones of anything makes everyone uncomfortable to some extent. For example, if I was offered a position at a company where I was the employee who has kids, then I am would know going in that I am an outlier and would be concerned about work culture and the ability to support working moms. Does that mean it is a bad company or that I wouldn't take a job there or even that I would have a negative, unsupportive experience? No. But it would certainly be something I would consider and want to explore when deciding to take a job or not.

To pretend our ethnic, economic, gender, sexual orientation, and other backgrounds don't matter or are irrelevant to everyday experience and ability to connect with others wreaks of -- guess what? White-washed privilege. I don't think you would find a minority on the street who would claim that. It is more than appropriate to consider that fact when evaluating education options to find an environment where your child will thrive. That may be a school where your kid is an extreme minority or it may not, but it isn't an irrelevant factor either way.

I also think it is very different if you have grown up being in the minority most of your life - for example, I grew up in the South where there are two predominant races, so anyone of a different background is almost always going to be the extreme minority. In that instance, you often don't have much of a choice either way (also something I brought up previously) or it is also an aspect of your everyday lived experience. A kid that isn't used to that might have a more difficult time transitioning versus a kid that is. That would also need to be a factor to consider - what has your child's experience been up until that point? My child will likely grow up in a school system where he is the minority, but not an extreme minority. He might handle going to a school where he is in the 1% better than a kid who didn't grow up that way, but it is too early to tell. [/quote]

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