Reply to Diversity of schools - can this work both ways? Am I being unreasonable?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My kid is at a heavily AA school (&gt;90%) and is white. I thought we could do it, especially when we got to PK and it turns out these grades are more diverse (i.e. she was not the only white kid in class, though she was one of only two and the only white girl).

But we're bailing. Not only do the classes get less diverse as you move up, but I'm realizing a lot of it isn't really even about race, it's culture and class. We've worked really hard to build relationships with other families at the school and even been successful to a degree. But we can never, ever shake the feeling that we, and our DD, are outsiders. Like even though we spend time with these families outside of school, the kids have developed friendships, etc., and everyone gets along and is friendly, there is just this very clear dividing line where we are the &quot;nice white family&quot; and DD is &quot;the white girl&quot; no matter what. We've given it three years and we are finally accepting that it's not going to get better.

Again, this isn't about people being unkind or my child being bullied. She's lonely at times, but not bullied. We just don't feel like we fit in because the school is overwhelming families from a specific race and background and we are not. It's just really lonely. It can also be stressful because there is no way for DD to blend in or get lost in the crowd, and sometimes as a kid that's what you want. She also will gravitate instinctively towards other white kids at school only to find that she doesn't really fit with them either.

But while we are leaving after this year, I will say that everything I just wrote has been very enlightening for me (and hopefully for DD) in terms of what it is like to navigate overwhelmingly white spaces as a black person, or to be an immigrant. I'm not saying it's the exact same experience, but it's closer than anything I've ever done before. I hope we all carry that knowledge forward and it contributes to empathy and understanding. But we want to feel like we belong -- I think that's a really normal, human feeling and I don't feel guilty for deciding to move to a school where we can have that. I hope everyone else finds that too.[/quote]

This is the lived experience of many people of color, except that we often don't have any other options to being the "only" or minority.[/quote]

Some of these are simply mechanical realities of being the minority which is why tribalism is a thing.  Problems arise when there is a power imbalance which incentivizes sticking to ones side vs having to venture out for opportunities. All of that said forever will be the case no matter how we define tribes as there will always be inside and out and it will always suck to be outside. Even some ideal of "individual merit" will oppress the meritless how ever specific it is defined.[/quote]

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