More on School Racism
Earlier, I posted about racism in the schools my daughter attends. Shortly thereafter, I had this interesting experience.I received a call from a guidance counselor at my daughter's middle school about an upcoming "concerned parents" night, which I know from experience is actually a program designed for minority parents. We started talking about high school, because my daughter is in 8th grade.
Now remember, my daughter is mixed race (which is why I get invited to the minority parents night, even though I am not a minority and my daughter does not consider herself black).
This counselor tells me that my daughter should consider taking career prep classes in high school. The high schools in this state have four "pathways" (nice word for tracks): college prep, college tech, career prep and vocational. I nearly went apoplectic at this suggestion and let me explain why.
My daughter is very bright, but don't take my word for it. She consistently gets good grades. She scores very high on the end of grade (EOG) tests. She took the SAT in 7th grade and got a 780 with no prep (and not having even studied several of the subjects). She has a personalized education plan, which is how the schools handle gifted kids in middle school. And this guidance counselor is suggesting career prep classes in high school?
Can you see why I nearly went ballistic? When I asked the counselor why she was suggesting such a thing, she sputtered a bit and then said that my daughter had a D in both science and math in the last grading period. I was well aware of this and felt it was due to the height of the basketball season (my daughter was on varsity -- did I mention she's also active in sports, band and is mature and exhibits stable behavior?). I had already put measures in place to deal with those grades.
To give this counselor the benefit of the doubt, I might perhaps think she is just very lazy and knew nothing about my child -- but since I know she does know my child, then I have to assume she was making this recommendation based on something else. And what, praytell, might that something else be? That my child is of color? Its all I could think of.
The counselor has since apologized, after I sent her a fairly scathing email, but keeps insisting that she makes this suggestion to every parent she has contact with. Yeah, right.
I expect much more of this nonsense to go on in high school. I've always told my daughter that she needs to be constantly aware that she is being judged much more harshly. Things a white kid could do and be forgiven for will be held against her. Welcome to life in Amerika.
2 Comments:
I read your whole blog entry and I agree that there was something behind that woman's suggestion that your child look into "college prep" (She may have had a few D's during the last grading period but did she look at her grades in its totality? Probably not). But I did notice something you mentioned and I was a bit troubled by it. You mentioned that your child doesn't consider herself "African American" but according to you her father IS black. So why doesn't she consider herself black as well? I ask this because this is a problem that most children of black and white relationships have - particularly when their mother isn't black. So I'm wondering why a person like you, who doesn't enjoy the superior attitude that other white people have towards your child would be ok with your child not acknowledging BOTH sides of her heritage by not considering herself black?
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