Seems fitting that my 1000th post is a topic that is central to this blog–parenting.
So, Kelly pointed the article “If I Was a Poor Black Kid” out on Facebook yesterday and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it and the ridiculous premise that technology will fix all that ails children who are poor (because there are even more white ones who are) and children of color. Maybe I am summarizes the article a bit too much.
While my kids are not poor, they are black. And even though they are not poor, we live in a city where most people assume that any black kid/family is poor. This is certainly not the case, but this article brought home for me the general assumption that they are. And it came at an interesting time, because I just had to bite my tongue at an even the other day when an upper middle class mom and I were talking about her son’s new school. Her son and Noah had been in the same class for preschool and for kindergarten they decided to try their local public school district because the district was the reason they bought their house, etc. I asked how it was going and she was talking about how amazed she was at how fast the curriculum went and she felt that he couldn’t miss even a few days at school. She went onto explain “well about 20% of the kids in the school and in his class are bussed in from the city and you know inner city kids they don’t come with the foundation for school so they have to work extra hard to catch up and I think the teachers have to make sure the inner city kids get caught up…..” and I stopped listening because I wanted to really challenge her on her racist/privileged outlook.
I simply pointed out it wasn’t to catch up inner city kids but to make sure that those kids are ready for the standardized testing that is coming their way.
But my point is that it is these exact beliefs that keep me from putting my kids in public school (all long with all the focus on testing and lack of focus on the whole child). We live in a city and surrounding county where we have a desegregation program–where black kids from the city can be transferred to schools in the county who participate in the program. I couldn’t put my kids in a school where they would be seen and assumed to be “poor” kids from the city because I know the expectations that teachers have for those kids. I just couldn’t have that for my kids. What is ironic is it my own privilege that allows me to know what these teacher often think of these “poor” kids from the city who spend over 2 hours a day on a bus in an attempt to level the playing field–when in reality they are often not allowed to play the same game. In this same way, my kids become privileged. Yet I have to be hyper aware of the messages they receive as they move in my world of privilege because there are plenty of people who won’t see past their skin color.
Embracing Imperfection 
I read the article you referenced and found the author to be both condescending and clueless.
It is true that when you are black child most people assume you are poor, and then when you grow up most people assume you are a thief or some other kind of criminal. I remember walking down a street one night and a woman ran away from me crying because she thought I was going to rob her, never mind that she outweighed me by at least 50 pounds and was at least 5″ taller. That was my first te visiting my college boyfriends house, his parents used this incident to point out by dating me he was limiting his options.
Maybe the world has changed since the mid 90s but some of the assumptions made: if you are black you must be guilty of something, black males are all potential rapists and aggressive, black women are all whores and not very discriminating in her choice of partner.
Oh and if you are a black woman you must be loud, obnoxious, aggressive – actually this is true for men too.
I don’t mind the poor assumption as much as I get annoyed being followed around in stores or being harassed by men who assume that just because I black I must be in the ” mood”.
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UGH! The article made me cringe as well. Especially the idea that all children from underprivileged backgrounds need to do to succeed is try hard enough – which just ignores the impact of environment altogether and makes it all too easy for people like Gene Marks to conclude that if someone doesn’t “succeed” it wasn’t for lack of opportunity, but lack of effort.
As the mom of two biracial boys (African-American/White), I share your concern about how stereotypes are going to affect how my children are treated in school. My boys haven’t reached school-age yet, but I’m already worried about whether the fact they are black will lead teachers to make certain conclusions that then affect the quality of their education. I know I’ll be quick to step in if I sense a problem, and in that respect my boys, too, are privileged.
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