I have been silent here about what is happening in our country. I can be silent – I can wait and try to figure out the right thing to say – because of my privilege. I recognize that. I also recognize that hiding behind my privilege, and staying silent, is not what I want to do, or who I want to be. So here I am, saying something, even though it’s probably not the right thing.
Yes I will be reading more black authors. Yes I will be support Black Rights organizations with donations. Yes I will be spending my money at black businesses in my city and elsewhere. Yes I will be talking to my kids more about racism. Yes, I believe these are all important steps and yes, I recognize none of this is enough.
I care deeply about creating equality in my community, and the world. I send my kids to a very underperforming school where they, as white upper middle class students, are the minority. I could easily send them to another school in San Francisco, with more middle and upper middle class students, where I don’t need to be so involved in the school because other parents are willing and able to do it. I could even send them to schools in my own district, where the student population is even whiter and wealthier. I don’t. I keep my kids in the diverse, and struggling school in our neighborhood, so they will grow up in the diversity I want to see everywhere in the world. Where they will have friends that look differently than they do, and who grow up in homes very different than ours. (And they do). I also send them to that school so that I am motivated to work at the ground level to create change in the schools in our district that really need it.
I like to think that I am “walking the walk” by sending my kids to that school. I’ve seen first hand, and read in comments on my blog, that most upper middle class parents are not willing to make that choice. And yet I know it’s not enough.
I want to volunteer for an organization that supports and advocates for black students in SFUSD, where they performing at alarmingly low rates. SFUSD fails a large portion of its student population, but it fails no group as profoundly as it fails black children. I am a teacher and I understand education reform better than most things. This feels like a place where I can make a difference, or at least try to.
So that is what I will be doing. I will let you know more about my efforts as I move forward with this.
Thank you.
For writing.
For keeping on and trying to be sure your children learn.
All children need to learn what black and brown children have had to learn in this country and why it is not right. Just as it is not right that public school children go to schools every school day where people with military weapons may kill them.
https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/ a site by Samuel Sinyangwe (Stanford grad, data analysis) worth parents looking at carefully and talking to politicians about. You need to look closely to see the changes in numbers in Oakland and San Fraancisco. (Knowing your husband works with SF government I would appreciate if he had an opinion you can share… but his job may not allow that or even provide a window into topic so he may not have an opinion.)
THINGS CAN CHANGE IF IT IS DEMANDED BY ENOUGH PEOPLE.
And, as always, Please vote.
https://twitter.com/DanMcKATU/status/1268004907119816704
Burnside bridge in PORTLAND
I’m glad we’re not the only ones choosing to put our kid in the more diverse school option than moving to the whiter parts of the SF area and schooling them there like many people we know. We’re not white but being Asian here is .. I’m not sure how to put it.. white adjacent, perhaps, in terms of the diversity situation. I think it’s important for our kiddo to know there are more than just white and Asian people in their world, especially from a young age and to talk to them very bluntly about racism and how it plays out, especially in our area.
I think you’re giving your kids a great gift by exposing them to diversity. So many parents don’t do that. Brava.