This is the line that caught me;
“I went to primarily white schools growing up,” Cathy Richmond Robinson says. “I think, ‘I did it, my kids can do it.’”
I didn’t realize the family was black until I clicked on the globe article to see their photo. I guess I don’t get this statement?? Will the middle-class white kids in Boston’s public schools be waiting for their children with knives and clubs?
Maybe I’m naive or maybe I’m on a different planet. I realize that racism still exists to this day, but I live in rural Maryland in an area that is mostly white. While my children go to a private school that is predominantly white, I honestly don’t expect race to even be an issue with my kids. I haven’t taught for them to think differently of skin tone than I have of a person’s height or color of their hair.
Certainly the children in Boston’s public school system have been inculcated with diversity and multiculturalism. Won’t these African American children be welcomed and treated as “more special” according to politically correct standards?
Honest,...I really don’t understand the statement? Are these folks unnecessarily holding onto a race card or is there legitimately a problem in Boston’s schools?
From last year and none other that the BG...
School crime rises, reflects Hub violence More weapons are confiscated
I grew up in a rich Boston suburb (25 miles out) in the 1970's and our town had 1 black family (the Robinson's). But kids from the inner city were bused out to us through the METCO program. So, I went to school with a number of black kids. I don't recall any racial incidents at all at school. The kids got a decent education, in a nice environment.
Given a choice between attending some "Martin Luther King HS" in Roxbury, or attending a "white school" in the suburbs, anyone of intelligence would hope that their kid could attend a primarily white school.
Well, in the woman’s defense, she was probably sent out of the city herself as a kid so she could get a decent education and maybe was hoping that when she had kids of her own, it wouldn’t be necessary. The problem is that Boston doesn’t have much of a middle class black presence.
The latter. Consider that the parents are well-spokem, concerned about their children's education, and benefited from going to a decent school. The real secret is that it isn't the color mix of the school, it is the value the parents place on education. It would be folly to say that the kids won't encounter some racism but once they are engaged in the learning process they will fit in just fine.
The current white population of Boston public schools is 14%. I assume that with the decline of the white middle class in the city, the quality of the schools has gone down. Whatever one's color, I assume this black family whose parents attended primarily white public schools while growing up, found the quality of the schools better than they are now. So they are willing to move to a white area so their children can get a better education. Hence the comment, "“I think, ‘I did it, my kids can do it.’”
Probably one of two things: either Cathy Richmond Robinson is old enough to have gone to Boston public schools when there was still a sizeable number of whites in the school system, or she was part of a METCO or ABC program that bussed inner-city African-Americans to schools in the Boston suburbs. Nowadays, basically, there is no appreciable white middle class in Boston that sends its children to Boston's public schools. Everyone bolted for the suburbs long ago.