Reply to Does anyone know what the demographics of Van Ness Elementary School is like this school year?

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Reply to "Does anyone know what the demographics of Van Ness Elementary School is like this school year?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It is [i]not[/i] racist to ask about the racial demographics of a school.

For those who think it is, please explain why DCPS prominently displays the racial makeup of each school on its website. Do you contend that DCPS is intentionally catering to racists?  If so, what if any actions have you taken to have this practice stopped?
[/quote]

I agree - the NPR story on desegregation basically said that desegregation has been the only program known to increase the overall test scores of poor black kids.  According to that story, schools that are overwhelmingly black and poor receive less media attention, less resources, less everything, and kids there suffer.  So, it's fair to ask about the racial demographics of a school.

What is racist, in my opinion, is using "engaged" as a code word for white.  Or "high SES" as a code word for white.  People on DCUM think they aren't being racist if they use euphemisms because hey, as long as they aren't talking about race directly and they're not using the N word, they aren't racist, right?  But if you are using "engaged" when you really mean white, what you are saying is that only white parents are engaged, which is a racist assumption.  Or if you describe a 50% white room as "50% high SES," you are making the racist assumption that only white parents can be high SES.

What is racist is looking at a room of parents at BTSN and describing them in the terms that the poster used.  If you are saying that the group was 50% white seeming and 50% black/ brown seeming, that is objective reporting based on observation.  If you are saying that 50% of the room is high SES, I'm going to call bullshit and racist euphemisms unless you can prove that income information was collected and shared at the door.  If you say that 50% of the room was "engaged," I'm also going to call bullshit and racism unless you can produce data from a survey administered at BTSN that showed that half the parents who showed up to their child's school for a school event didn't give a shit.[/quote]

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