Going to School in Black and White

by Cindy Waszak Geary

  I hung up the phone relieved that she had been so accommodating and that it looked as if I had finally found a place for our daughter. I left work a few minutes early and drove the 40-minute commute from work to the church daycare. I walked up to the door and rang the bell. A middle-age white woman opened the door, gave me the once over and asked, “Yes, may I help you?” with a rather icy tone. “Yes, hello,” I replied, alarm bells softly tinkling in my head, but not wanting to overreact.

  I continued, “I am the lady who called earlier today to ask if there were any openings. I spoke with someone who said that I could stop by this evening to get more information and go on a tour of the facility.”

  The woman did not move from the doorway. “Well, I don’t know who you talked to, but we don’t have any openings here.” She offered nothing further. I could not believe what she was saying.

  “Are you sure?” I replied, my voice shaking. “The lady with whom I spoke sounded as though you had lots of openings, and that is why she invited me to stop by today.”

  “No, sorry, she must have made a mistake.”

  By this time, I realized what I was dealing with, but I wanted to see the performance through to its logical conclusion.

  “Well, may I at least see the facility in case an opening becomes available? We could keep checking back to see when you have space.” The lady in the doorway was not budging from her stance.

  “Well, I wouldn’t waste my time because we are full, and we will not have space anytime soon.”

  “Well, that’s OK,” I said, “I don’t mind waiting, and I expect that we’ll have other children, so I would like to see the facilities anyway.”

  I smiled sweetly at her obstinacy. I knew there was nothing about my exterior or mannerism to which she could object. I was professionally dressed, and I spoke with all the eloquence and confidence of a person with two higher education degrees. I had told her that we were homeowners in the area, and she could see that I was driving a late model vehicle. But yet, there she stood, refusing to engage with me any further.

  A few seconds passed. She shifted her weight from one leg to the other, exhaled in frustration with my persistence, but could not think quickly enough to come up with another excuse. So she stood to the side.

  “Well, this is it,” she said as she waved her arm in one huge circle around the entirety of the room while she kept her eyes focused on me to make sure I did not cross the threshold. I made a point of looking slowly around the interior of the brightly lit and well-resourced room, and then I took one step back and prepared to leave.

  “Well, thank you for showing it to me,” I commented after the 10-second tour, “but I do have one question,” and looked beyond her glassy stare to hit my target.

  “Do you have any black children who attend this daycare?

  Check and mate. I waited for her reply.

  “Well, um… we don’t, umm, I don’t...ummm.”

  “Never mind,” I said. “I don’t think that this is the right place for my child. Thank you for your time.” I retreated to my car. I replayed the scene over and over in my head as I drove the three minutes to my house. Then I sat in the driveway and sobbed.

  After that experience, I felt the need to shield my children from this kind of small-town bigotry. And though the private schools my children attended while they were growing up were primarily white, they had an articulated goal of diversity, and they welcomed my children.

  After this horrible experience with the local church daycare, I found a beautiful Montessori school that I absolutely loved. I do not even know how the idea of putting my daughter in Montessori school came to me; I think I had been reading about it. As with anything else when I have to figure something out, I started doing research and somehow, maybe through friends, I found out about this school. When I went to talk to the staff, I fell in love with the whole concept, the whole idea of it.

  But it was not my intention to send my kids to private school all of their lives, because I was always a public school girl. Right? And Tim pretty much left that decision to me because I had the stronger opinion about it. After kindergarten in Montessori school, I had to think about elementary school. There is an elementary school maybe a half-mile from my house. I pass it every day on my way to work. That is how convenient and close it is. I went to look at it and made an appointment to talk to the teachers and to the principal, and here is what turned me off. In the Montessori schools, my daughter Rozalia was doing very well. She was hitting all her markers, and the Montessori people encouraged independence and self-reliance. Rather than lining all the children up to go to the bathroom one after the other, they allowed the children to go whenever the need arose. That was part of that being “in tune” with one’s self. And my daughter is like that; she is in tune with her own feelings.

  After I made an appointment to visit the nearby elementary school, the teacher was taking me through the ropes. She proudly explained to me that “by the end of the first grade, they will know their numbers one through 10, and they will know the alphabet.” For me, that was a very low bar. So I asked, “What if a child comes to first grade and they can do all those things already?” She replied, “Well, we make sure everybody is at the same level by the end of the first year of school.”

  I know I stayed another 30 minutes, but I did not hear anything else she said. I knew that my child was not going to that school. So that was it. I had fallen in love with the Montessori methodology, and they had a program through sixth grade. So we kept our kids in Montessori school through sixth grade, and in private schools through high school.

  To be clear, the choice of where to send our children to school was never about race—it was about my perception of the quality of my children’s education. Most of the local public schools were white. So my decisions were definitely based on what I thought were matters of quality, equality, and fairness. I wanted to be clear that the stated mission of the schools would allow my children to thrive academically and not just survive.

  The price of our concern for the quality of our children’s education, though, meant that the “starter” home that my husband and I moved into—well, we’re still in it 26 years later. So while a lot of my friends were able to move into what I consider nicer homes in more upscale neighborhoods, my husband and I are still in the same place, a three-bedroom brick ranch. We made the decision to invest tens of thousands of dollars into private school education, and because of that decision, we were not able to move into the type of house I would have loved to have later in my career.

  Both my children are smart and have been academically successful throughout school, including college, but so are lots of children who attended the local public schools. The high school dropout rate for black teens in our state remains too high, and the lack of access to gifted programs for black children remains too limited. So were we smart to live where we do and send them to private school, or should I have moved to another school district to send them to public schools? I try not to dwell too much on that question.

  I must admit that I did think about the lack of racial diversity in the schools the children attended. I remember meeting with one of the teachers in Rozalia’s preschool classroom. They were telling us all about the school. There was nothing I did not like about what they were saying, and I felt that it was a very natural decision to put her there. It felt like the kind of place that I would have liked to go to school. So the last question I remember asking was, “What is the diversity like in the school? I do not see many kids of color here, you know, black kids, here.” And she said—this was such a perfect response in my mind—she said, “Well, yes, you are right. That is one of the things we want to work on, getting more black kids in the school and Hispanic kids, but you have to remember, LaHoma, that creating a diverse environment for your child goes beyond the school grounds, so we like to emphasize with the parents that it is important who they go to school with, but it is also important who they socialize with after school and wh
o they go to church with on Sunday and who their parents are friends with.” That was the perfect response for a person like me. She got me. There is only so much the school can do. If I send my kids to school in this environment, and for the other 18 hours of their day they live in a very different way, then that is not as effective as if there is consistency across all parts of their lives. That teacher’s response and my beliefs tie into what Cindy said earlier: that she did not use the school system as the sole socialization mechanism, as the only organizing framework for how she raised her kids.

  The degree to which we had our kids involved with afterschool activities, who their friends were, who our friends were—all that is also where I put a lot of time and energy in with my children. I wanted to make sure that they were getting a very well integrated community. So that is why I went to two churches on Sunday. My family is black; Tim’s family is white. Our kids are just comfortable wherever. And in addition to all that, they were in an academic environment where they were thriving. I also put a lot of legwork into Girl Scouts and sports clubs and all those things where racial lines were more blurred, where there was a greater diversity of kids.

  I am proud of what I see and hear from my children on racial issues. They have friends, and they date whomever they please, based on personality preferences, not race. My daughter developed this strong sense of identity at an early age. I will never forget the day she overheard her black camp counselors teasing each other about liking a white boy at school—emphasis on the fact that he was white. The camp coordinator later shared with me that Rozalia had asked the girls, “What’s wrong with dating a white guy? My daddy is white.” Embarrassed, the girls had no reply for her. She has continued to challenge prejudice and ignorance through high school and college, and it will be interesting to watch how she manages as she begins her professional work life. My son, who never understood my desire to discuss race at all because it never seemed like a big deal to him, has more recently tried to draw me into such conversations. He, along with the rest of the country, has witnessed via social media the tragic death of Trayvon Martin and other young black men his age. Now that he is close to college graduation, he seems to be paying closer attention to these issues, like it or not, as he makes his own way through school and beyond.

  Our time together working on this book project has revealed where I have placed my time, energy, and resources: making sure that my children saw their place in a world that was welcoming to all, boldly embracing, and beautifully diverse. I look forward to continuing this same work with the generation to come.

  Epilogue—What now

  Epilogue

  What Now?

  The desire for desegregated schools was about two goals: teaching children of different races how to live together and ensuring that black students had access to the same resources as white students. School desegregation was part of the path to achieving Martin Luther King Jr.’s “beloved community,” an ideal manifestation of the inter-relatedness of all human beings regardless of the color of their skin, their faith, their gender or their wealth—a community of love and a community of justice.

  Court-ordered desegregation actually moved us closer to that vision, according to research on school integration during the 1970s and ’80s (12). In spite of this, the political will was not sustainable, and white parents found ways to resist by moving or sending their children to private schools and by voting judges out of office. Court orders were eventually almost all reversed. In the absence of laws to mandate desegregation, schools are once again highly segregated, with more than 70 percent of black students going to majority non-white schools and nearly 40 percent of black students going to hyper-segregated schools. Those students pay the price in lower school achievement and employment prospects (13).

  Without court-ordered mandates, entrenched racial housing segregation continues to drive school segregation. Housing segregation is itself driven by a long history of racist policies—redlining and unfair mortgage loan practices, for example—that are not likely to change quickly. Court-ordered school desegregation did not work, and it will never be retried. There is no political will for such unpopular policy.

  In the absence of courageous national leadership, creating the beloved community will require community solutions. But the communities surrounding hyper-segregated schools face multiple challenges with few resources. School districts need dialogue between and across communities and racial lines.

  What if each school district were asked to come up with a plan for making the beloved community a reality, and what if funding became dependent on achieving that goal? This scenario sounds dreamy, but school systems spend a lot of money trying to fix what is wrong in an already broken system. What if they start with a vision of what they want?

  Local decision-making for schools requires community-driven processes to figure out how to make racial equity work across a school district or state. It requires many people talking to one another to understand what their individual and mutual needs are. Community-based participation is not an easy process. It takes a long time, and it is frustrating to many people, because during the conversation it seems as if nothing is happening. The process makes funders and administrators nervous because it requires different metrics for success than are usually used; the process is difficult to manage and hard to evaluate in the short term. It takes political will and financial support to make community-driven solutions to racial equity in schools work. Stakeholders (parents, teachers, school administrators) who are not motivated to seek racial equity for its own sake will require convincing that racial inequities have costs for everyone (14).

  Dramatic demographic changes in the South since we were in school in the 1960s and ’70s will bring even more complexity to the task of locally driven solutions. The racial composition of schools is no longer primarily black and white; Latino children now comprise nearly the same proportion of students as black children do. In 1970 in the South, 67 percent of students were white; 27 percent were black; 6 percent were Latino, and less than 1 percent were Asian. In 2014, these proportions had shifted to 43 percent white, 27 percent Latino, 24 percent black and 3 percent Asian. Working toward racial diversity and equity within school systems where there are substantial percentages of white, black and Latino students will require that those participating in the efforts pay attention to multiple cultural understandings and requirements. (15)

  * * *

  There are no quick fixes, no silver bullets. There will be different solutions for different communities. Progress may mean greater racial integration, or it may not. Though we are talking about the need for non-white students to have access to all educational opportunities that white students have access to, we still want to consider the importance of keeping some safe spaces for minority students. Some students will benefit by having teachers of the same race who better understand their cultural context and who can challenge them without sending them out into the deep waters before they are ready. The resources at their schools must be equal to those at schools with majority white students, however.

  Finding ways to achieve racial equity in public schools, as well as in all other institutions in our country, requires that people—black, brown, and white—find a way to talk to one another about the reality of race in their lives. Over the course of the writing of this book, our focus has been working together to find our truths about the role of race in our school lives. It was through our conversations that our most valuable insights occurred.

  * * *

  There are so many people NOT talking about race even as their beliefs about race direct their actions; they are uncomfortable talking about it, they do not know how to talk about it, and they need role models and safe spaces. Unfortunately not talking about race leads to more feelings of discomfort and distrust of people with whom we share no stories, no laughs, and no insights into each other’s lives.

  We, LaHoma and Cindy, ask you, the readers of this book, to think with us about the value of publ
ic school integration even in the absence of court-ordered mandates. We are not advocating the desegregation of our resegregated schools as scholars, or politicians, but rather as two people, one black, one white, who lived through, survived, thrived in, and reaped value from an experience that transformed our lives. We are people who came to understand the importance of creating a fair and inclusive society, one that benefits from equal and just access for all of its members.

  Our hope is that our stories will encourage you to think about your own stories related to race, stories that have shaped what you believe or how you live your lives today. We hope that you will share these thoughts with others. And if you have friends of other races, we hope that you will share your stories with them, and listen to theirs, and together, begin a conversation. Through this dialogue, we hope you gain a greater understanding of how each of you feels about being a member of your own race. We hope you begin to understand the perspectives of people from races other than your own, and to see why something may seem threatening racially when it may not be about race at all. We hope that from these conversations, you can find your shared concerns, and that rather than putting up barriers, you will find a way to talk through the discomfort, face down your fears and find hope for the beloved community—together.

  Notes

  Notes

  Opening Quotes

  hooks, b. (1996). Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood. NY: Henry Holt & Co., p. xv.

  Alexander, E. (2010). Amistad, Cinque Redux. Crave Radiance: New and Selected Poems: 1990-2010, Minneapolis, MN: Graywolf Press, p. 212.

  Obama, B. January 10, 2017, Farewell speech.

  Chapter One

  1. Barnett, N. February 15, 2015. Editorial, News and Observer, Raleigh, NC.

  2. The increase in hypersegregation in the South and West since a 1991 low of around 26 percent reflects the effects of reversals of court-ordered desegregation. The percentages of black students in the Northeast in hypersegregated schools has been stable at around 50 percent since 1991, indicating lower initial levels of desegregation. See Table 8 and Figure 3 in Orfield, G., Frankenberg, E., Ee, J. & Kuscera, J. (2014). Brown at 60: Great progress, a long retreat and an uncertain future. A report. Los Angles, Calif.: The Civil Rights Project (UCLA); https://www.civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/research/k-12-education/integration-and-diversity/brown-at-60-great-progress-a-long-retreat-and-an-uncertain-future/Brown-at-60-051814.pdf