School choices, part 1

Over the past several years, as Adam and I have developed a better understanding of race and privilege, it became overwhelmingly clear that we were simply not doing enough to ensure that our children were surrounded by people who look like them.  We had taken small steps: having Kiddy involved in our lives; joining a geographically inconvenient but racially diverse YMCA; sending Dawit to the Boys and Girls Club with nary a white person in sight; attending events for Ethiopian adoptive families, and so on.  But we had failed in one critical area: school.  The places where our children spend a significant amount of time, where they go to learn and socialize and develop a sense of their place in the world, are simply not diverse enough.  We realized that we needed to walk the walk and make some really big changes in order to meet our kids’ needs as people of color in a dominant white society.

I’m incredibly ashamed to admit this, but Sula is the only child of color at her school this year.  Yup, you read that right.  Out of the entire school population, there is only one child of color.  I had plenty of logical reasons for sending her there.  We chose the school for Bo before we had brought Sula and Dawit home from Ethiopia.  With a socially-anxious two-year-old Bo in tow, I had toured most of the preschools in our area, seeking a place that offered the warm, nurturing environment that Bo needed to bring him out of his shell.  Racial diversity wasn’t even on my radar.  I knew when I walked into the building and the director crouched down on her knees to greet Bo with a broad smile that it was the right place for him.  In order to secure a spot for the three-year-old class that fall, Adam arrived at 6:15 in the morning on registration day with a lawn chair and papers to grade while he and the dozens of other parents waited for the door to open at 10.

Everything was great, at first.  Bo attended his first day of preschool while Adam and I were halfway around the world meeting his new brother and sister for the first time.  In the midst of some serious family chaos, preschool was a tranquil oasis where Bo could escape from his needy baby sister who always wanted to be on Mom’s lap and his bigger, faster, stronger older brother and form his own identity and make his own friends.  Bo was a nightmare at home, a furious ball of rage and tears, but when he was a preschool he was a solemnly pleasant turn-taker and hand-raiser.  He loved his teachers and always looked forward to school.  There was only one little blip on that radar of mine, when I realized that the entire curriculum for December seemed to be centered upon Christmas, and, well, we’re Jews.  The school director told me I was welcome to come in and do a Chanuka presentation, but I was still operating in crisis mode as I learned to balance my new life with my new job and my new kids.  No matter; Bo was sick one week that month anyways, and I just kept him home the rest of the month because it was easier and heck, it was December and I didn’t feel like going out in the cold with two toddlers anyways.

Every day I’d wait in line to pick up Bo with Sula cuddled in the sling, from which she would shyly greet Bo’s adoring teachers.  Over the course of the year, Sula began to like and trust the sweet, child-centered teachers of the three-year-old class at school.  After a tumultuous first two years of life, with the scenes and cast of characters around her constantly changing, I thought that it made a great deal of sense to send Sula to the school that could offer familiar faces and routines.  Never mind that all of those faces were white, I figured; they were loving, familiar faces, and that was what mattered most.  And so Sula went to the same preschool that Bo attends, with the same teachers he had last year.

But I started to pick up some signals on my radar this year.  First, at the beginning of December, when the director called me in to discuss the holiday program and the curriculum for the month.  My concerns about the exclusivity of the curriculum and the other-ing of my children fell on ears that I suspected were capable of hearing, but were being covered by a woman singing “lalalalalala.”  I was reminded that changes were being made ONLY because of Bo and Sula, that this school has had a tradition of doing things the way they do for the past thirty or so years, and that parents expect things to remain that way.  Our family was in the minority, and I was expected to understand that.

Then, a few weeks ago, Sula confided in Adam that a little girl in her class named Sarah Brown told her she didn’t like her.  Sarah didn’t want to play with Sula, and had used unkind words to wound her and push her away.  Our hearts broke for our gentle and sensitive little girl.  Her teachers were distressed and offered an explanation: “I bet Sarah is jealous.  Sula is so beautiful; she will probably have to deal with this for the rest of her life.”  I am afraid that they were right about one thing: Sula WILL have to deal with this for the rest of her life.  But I’m not sure that it’s just because she is beautiful.  She IS beautiful, spectacularly so, but in a way that is so unique and beyond the reach of plain little girls like Sarah Brown that I fear Sula’s uniqueness and her brownness and her differences will evoke hatred and anger in others.  But at age three?  We should be doing a better job of protecting her.  We shouldn’t put her in a situation where her peers take note as all of the teachers and parents blather on about how GORGEOUS she is and how AMAZING her curls or braids are and how “Sula” is just such a DIFFERENT name.  If I were Sarah Brown, with straight mousy-brown hair and eyes that don’t sparkle, I might hate Sula, too.  Sula needs to be around more Sulas and less Sarah Browns.

So today, when the preschool director approached me to ask where we were sending Sula for next year, I took a breath and let out the lines that I had rehearsed over and over.  I explained that we were seeking a more racially diverse environment and had chosen a new school for that reason, but that I would be happy to offer suggestions for diversifying the school, if she would find that helpful for the future.  She was not interested, but I expected as much.  She blamed the lack of diversity on the surrounding area, which to be fair, is mostly white; however, I vividly recall the very same woman bragging about the fact that this particular preschool has students from more than a dozen towns, where I’m certain there are plenty of brown people.  But, you see, she explained, she just answers the phone when interested (white) parents call to inquire about preschool for their precious little children.  Her job is to write down their names.  Nothing more, nothing less.  And that’s just not good enough for us anymore.