Integration: Who Is It Good For?
Hint: Middle class white students…
By Jack SchneiderI have watched friends lock their doors as black men crossed between cars on the street. They have done it without breaking conversation and without acknowledgment. My wife and I have had acquaintances challenge our decision to enroll our daughter in the public school across the street from our house. What would we do, one asked, if she were invited to a sleepover in “the projects”?
We have listened to stories in which a person’s race or class was mentioned, despite it being irrelevant. Irrelevant, of course, except for the fact that the person in question was inevitably the story’s villain.
We have heard parents express concern about the *city kids* (a peculiar euphemism to use in an urban area like ours, where all kids are by definition city kids) flooding onto a