Reply to To non-white parents with kids at mostly white schools

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]As a bi-racial person in my 40s, they've gotta get used to it because it will be like this throughout the rest of their lives.

So don't worry so much. Think of it as life skills training, along with the great academics.[/quote]

It's been that way all along...  Hispanics majority bi and triracial.  AA a good percent are bi racial sense like forever.  This is nothing new.  We are just calling it by a different name.[/quote]
PP here and I think you missed my point. My point is that the "diversity issue" where minority and bi-racial kids find themselves in environments where they are the only or one of only a few students in the classroom is what I was referring to. While ideally it would be nice to have a broadly diverse school where your kids don't feel different or where differences are celebrated, the reality is that this is just not the case as one moves through life. Throughout my life, I have constantly been the only or one of a small number of minorities in classrooms through public schools, university, grad school and now the workforce. If you cannot make peace with this and find a way to interact with the world as it is, you will never be successful.

I am not saying that it is not hard. It can be very hard at times and very lonely too. Extremely lonely. But it is necessary to find the mental strength to push on through and frankly it is good that socialize this early on, because there will certainly be fewer minorities at whatever university ones kids attend and likely even fewer in professional positions where one works.

With that said, one of the skills that gets learned is how to identify bad situations where minorities are set up to fail and both how to confront and deal with it, as well as to avoid it completely in the future. As many PPs have pointed out, diversity of numbers does not always and actually rarely translates into a healthy social environment for minorities. When you add in the fact of being bi-racial, the divided lunchrooms, cliques and social scenes can take a toll on ones sense of self and psychological well being. In the end though, kids in parent households with upper-middle class parents have a lot in common, despite background, ethnicity and skin color.

What I am oddly finding, as I look at my totally mixed little find herself socially in a W cluster is that she is generally making friends with other kids who are "different" somehow than the model upper-middle class white American family. She has a number of friends who are white and being raised by single mothers, a lot of friends of mixed race of various different backgrounds, e.g. South Asian/White, East Asian/White, etc. and a large number of Jewish friends. I do not believe, nor do I get the sense that the more typical white kids are excluding her, I think it is just kids look for affinity groups and she has found hers from the time being. I suspect while she gets older, may and most likely will change.

It is important to understand who you are, what makes you different, and whether the social dynamics of the place you are thinking about sending your kids to school or working are compatible with that. [/quote]

This poster makes some excellent points.  I agree with most of what you're saying.[/quote]

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