Reply to Racism / Classism on DCurbanmom trolls or true?

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[quote=Anonymous]I think Banneker is actually a great example of the ways in which racism plays out. White parents in DC justify not sending their kids to any DC high school other than Wilson or Walls (if kid gets in). They say it's because they want academic rigor above all other criteria. If that's the case, then Banneker should be on their list, right? Academic rigor galore. But if you ask them about that, suddenly other criteria - like diversity and distance from home - become very important. I'm fine with diversity and distance from home being key criteria, but if you want academic rigor from a high school most  and you don't even consider Banneker, I have a hard time putting my finger on what other reason you could possibly have.

I send my very Scandinavian looking daughter to our neighborhood school. She's not the most advanced student in her 19-kid first grade, but she's definitely in the top 5 at any given time. When I talk to other parents in this area about her school experience, they don't ask what they're learning in first grade. They ask about the "social issues" and them at some point pretty quick after bringing up social issues, they ask if it's hard for her to be the only "high SES white student" in her class (she's actually one of two, but that's irrelevant to these parents). They are desperately concerned about what their kid's social experience will be as a consequence of their kid's ethnicity, and I've watched for several years as they try to figure out ways to ask the question without actually asking the question.

That's where the microaggressions come in, on this board and elsewhere. They don't want to come right out and say they're concerned about too many poor and/or brown kids, but they do want to know how those kids will affect their kid's experience. So they say "unprepared students" or "students whose parents don't value education" or ask about "behavioral issues" as though those were unique to the kids they're concerned about.

I understand them wanting to know, but I truly think it would be better if we had a very candid conversation about the effects of race and class on the educational experiences of DC kids. There are effects, and our kids will all deal with them, whether we manage to scrape together the $700k+ to buy a house in bounds for "a good school" or move to Bethesda or whatever. Talking about things from a place of sincerity, rather than derision and skepticism, would be helpful for me, but I've been told repeatedly by this board that I'm doing my daughter a lifelong disservice by sending her to a school where there are few children who look like her. [/quote]

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