I’m listening to Nice White Parents, and I’m definitely getting a lot out of it, though I do feel like the title; and her thesis; that “Nice White Parents” are responsible for the problems in American school systems is designed more to attract attention for being controversial than it is an accurate description of the problem.
Even the title “Nice White Parents” wouldn’t be as much of an issue if it was described as a sociological exploration, but instead, she doubles down on this being not only a framing but her thesis. As many like to say, language matters, and because of the framing, I think it takes away from many of the messages of her story.
That being said I am actually getting a lot out of the sociological explanation. Some of the culture clashes between the new white parents and existing working-class parents in the PTA are painful to listen to. I’m only halfway through, but I think the biggest takeaway that I have so far is a continuation of something I’ve been considering a lot lately, and that is that diversity is hard.
In the second episode, Chana Joffe Walt interviews a white parent who was told about a newly integrated school in the 1960s. The parent submitted a form in order to sign her child up for the new school and talked about how excited she was and important it was for her child to be part of a diverse group, but after visiting the school, the parent decided not to send their child there.
This interview is extremely uncomfortable, but fascinating(though it seems a bit hypocritical that Chana didn’t submit herself to a similar questioning, which would have been interesting given the subject and Chana’s own experience as a “Nice White Parent”). But during the interview, it for the mother comes down to the fact that it just seemed too hard in the end to make change.
And I think this is the crux of the problem the show is attempting to describe, and the fundamental problem with how we sell diversity. In the business world we also have these idealizations about diversity and inclusion, but in the end, isn’t this just a way of saying that we should pursue DE&I because it’s good for white people? What happened to pursue it for those who were oppressed or because it’s the right thing to do?
It gets me thinking about how I interact with the DE&I Community. Am I doing it because it’s cool, and because of some idealization of what diversity represents? Or am I doing it to help underprivileged peoples?
