On 18 January 2008 Amy Rostron-Ledoux, an EMID parent of kids from District 622, posted this message to our mailing list. She graciously allowed us to post the message here as well.
As a parent of children living in District 622, I took a tour of Tartan High School during their lunch time today. After being a part of EMID for my children's entire education (more than a decade), to me this felt like a step back in time to another era. An era before Martin Luther King, Jr., before Ruby Bridges, and before, Brown verses Board of Education.
First of all, after signing in at 11:20 in the morning, I decided to count the number of white faces I saw before I saw a person of color. This figure approached 30 before an unsuspecting African American male happened to walk past me. This is certainly no scientific method, but I wanted to know what images people see when they first enter Tartan High School.
On my way to the Guidance Office, I noticed two large display boards on the wall. One of these boards was labeled "Students of the Month" and the other displayed pictures of all of the faculty. Again no rocket science going on here, I just counted all of these faces and noted which ones appeared to be people of color. Of the 54 students, I counted 5 of color and of the 125 staff I noted maybe 4 who appeared to be people of color.
After stopping in at the office and being assigned to 2 student guides, I made my way to my true destination... the cafeteria. I am no sociologist, but I figure you can tell a lot about a school by observing the mores and protocol of students at lunch time. This is what I observed:
Once the students received their lunches, they proceeded to head to their tables. I am sure you know where I am going with this so I will spare the suspense. Yes, the Asian kids sat with other Asian kids, the black kids sat with other black kids, and the white kids sat with the white kids. I asked my student guides if this was typical and they said that it was.
Wanting to dig a bit deeper, I asked my student guides if it would be okay for me to walk around the cafeteria a bit. I approached "the black table" and introduced myself and asked if I could ask them some questions about their school. I told them that I have 7 kids - five of them are black and 2 are bi-racial, Chippewa and French Canadian. I asked them how kids of different races got along at Tartan and this is what I was told.
One boy spoke up and said "Oh, everybody gets along just fine. It doesn't matter what color you are. See I am Mexican but I sit at the black table."
A girl from the other side responded "That's because you are more black than Mexican," a statement that elicited much laughter from the other kids at table.
I asked the other kids if they felt the same way, that everyone gets along with everyone else regardless of race, and they all agreed. I was surprised by this response because this did not appear to be the case.
I explained to these students what I was observing. I said "It seems as if all the kids of certain colors are sitting together but they are separate from the white kids." The kids nodded in agreement with me and confirmed that this is the case. (My white tour guides, who were not a apart of this conversation, said the same thing when I asked them. "You pick who you are going to eat lunch with on the first day and then you stay at that table for the rest of the year.")
So I asked the kids an obvious question. "If people of all races get along so well, why aren't the kids of color eating alongside their white peers." Whoah! Did this ever get a response. After the laughter died down the kids said "Because they are white! They are different. They think different. They act different. That is just the way it is." Apparently if you are a "black" Mexican, it is okay to have a "multicultural" experience at lunch. But those credentials can't buy you a passport to the "white side" of the cafeteria!
I brought a 15 year old African American girl with me on this sociological adventure, a former EMID student. Interestingly she ran into an old classmate from Harambee and struck up a conversation with her. Knowing that my intentions were to observe the racial interactions at the school, she asked this white friend of hers what the racial climate was like. Her friend said that it was very segregated at Tartan. She said that if a person of one race were to try to sit at the cafeteria table with kids of a different race, it would start a fight. Yes. A fight. Over the color of someone’s skin and the perception of where they should be seated in the cafeteria.
I was very happy to sign out of Tartan High School at 11:41 this morning. Upon my departure, I picked up three pizzas and drove to Crosswinds Arts and Science School where 4 of my 7 children are students. I joined my daughter and her friends for lunch and seated at our circular table were several of her friends. I don't always make note of the skin tones on the children's faces when I am eating my lunch, but this time I did. Seated at this circular table built for eight were black children, white children, and Asian children. They are all friends. They all know each other. They all talk to each other on the phone and hang out on the weekend. They all ate from the same boxes of pizza and they all sit at the same table at in the cafeteria. They are all the result of EMID.
Apparently I have taken the fact that my children feel comfortable in multicultural and multiracial experiences for granted. As an EMID family, this is the norm for us. Eating lunch with these kids, all together at one table, seemed perfectly natural. I didn't set out to have a "multicultural experience," but in retrospect I did. The "multicultural" experience for me was being in the minority at Tartan. I may be Caucasian and a member of the predominant race at Tartan, but as an EMID family, I certainly was not a part of the dominant mind set that prevailed at lunch time. In fact, other than the "black" Mexican sitting at the "black table" at lunch, the only multiracial experience I observed at Crosswind was the conversation between the 15 year old African American girl who accompanied me and her white former classmate. Both of these girls are from EMID. Hmmm....
You say you want your district to be a leader in the area of integration? If you are leading, I am afraid you will take your followers in the wrong direction. Right back to the 50's. What you appear to have in your schools is the opposite of integration. It is reverse desegregation. What would be another name for that? Oh yeah! Segregation.
I know not what the future holds for the relationship between EMID and 622, but as a mother of EMID students, as long as this is what I see in the area of integration, you will never get your hands on my kids or the tax dollars that follow them. Thanks, but no thanks. We prefer to prepare our kids for the future, not hold them back in the past!