Over at Dawn‘s there is an interesting conversations about the benefits of diversity for white kids.
I grew up in a really White white white place. My high school was probably only about 2% kids of color. I can pretty much remember who each and every one of them was, too, race was such a factor.
When I went away to a big, pretty diverst college, I found myself at a serious disadvantage because I was so extremely uncomfortable around people of color. It wasn’t that I didn’t LIKE them, it was more a matter of not knowing how to act. I felt embarrased by my ignorance. I felt awkward and shy.
I think it really wasn’t until I got to know A that I started to feel more comfortable. I can remember being hyper-vigalent about my interactions with A, when we first met. Watching every word so I wouldn’t betray my ignorance or discomfort. Fortunately, A didn’t seem to notice. After working at the same restaurant together for a while (and after his break up with the Girlfriend Before Me), we became great friends. Many of A’s friends (now my friends too) were Asian or Indian. I quickly realized that we all had a lot in common (we were all ravers, for one thing) and that they were just people too.
After spending all that time finally getting comfortable, I swore I would never let my kids live in such isolation. We would never live in a place where they didn’t interact with people of color on a daily basis.
As crazy at it seems, though, before M was born the thought hadn’t really occured to me that my kids would end up being kids of color too. Or maybe, I knew they would be Asian (or hapa), but before I actually knew them I didn’t think it would matter so much.
We started talking a lot about the kind of school we wanted our kids to go to. If we had lived in the city, the schools would have been very diverse in terms of African American kids, but the number of Asian kids was less than 3% in most elementary schools. We found ourselves really thinking about what mattered more for OUR kids, our Asian/hapa kids.
Pretty quickly, we decided that it was more important for them to be in a place where there were other Asian faces. To find that, we had several school districts with fairly high rates (for our area) of Asian* enrollment. Even within our own school district, we had to be very selective about the elementary school we chose because the number of Asians varies greatly by neighborhood. To find a decent number of Asian kids (8-10% in our elementary school) we sacrificed diversity with respects to African American (about 10%) and Hispanic (2-3%) kids.
When we were house shopping, we talked about the diversity of the neighborhoods a lot. I was surprised that so many of our liberal white friends said that thinking about school diversity had never occured to them. We also had a hard time convincing our realtor that diversity was important to us.
Of course, we had other criteria too (walkable neighborhood, decent sized house, not to far from work, academic standards, etc.). We were lucky that we found a house that was a good compromise between the schools we wanted and the location.
But still, most of our neighbors are white. I think the real test will come when M actually starts school. If it ends up that 8% Asian kids isn’t enough for her to feel accepted and good about herself, we will move or send her to private school.
*Most of the Asian kids in this part of town are Korean, Chinese, Japanese or Indian American.
Well, I’m not a White parent (nor do I play one on TV), but I do think diversity is important for all children. While diversity may not play a critical part in White children’s self-esteem, it does play a critical part in their self-awareness and their moral/intellectual development.