One of my 5th-grade students said something yesterday like, "it's not like segregation in the past," then our class paraprofessional replied, "it's little known that NYC has the most segregated public schools system in the US." Then I showed them a racial dot map of NYC. 1/
2/ Here's that racial dot map of NYC. Each dot reps 120 of one race, so it's a visual of racial segregation. On this map, white is green, Black is blue, Latinx is orange, and Asian is red. Source from a 2015 @nytimes article: nytimes.com/interactive/20…
See how segregated NYC is?!
See how segregated NYC is?!
3/ I asked my students if they knew white or black kids- most said no. I zoomed into Sunset Park on that map and showed the majority of ppl living there were orange and red dots, Latinx and Asian, and that their neighborhood, like almost all of NYC, is ridiculously segregated.
4/ My 5th-grade students were shocked. They said, "but there's a lot of white people around Sunset Park" (directly to their south in Bay Ridge and to their East in what I think is Dyker Heights?) They saw the huge Black block in East Brooklyn on that NYC racial dot map.
5/ My students asked me about my Chinatown, where they knew I grew up & live now, and I showed the 1 block of red in Manhattan. I showed the majority of Manhattan was green below 96th Street, meaning white people lived there. They asked about Staten Island- mostly white again.
6/ My students asked about the Bronx, which they'd heard rumors of that was dangerous, and then we had to get into a conversation about what makes areas "dangerous" and how people's perceptions of poverty and race play into that. As you can imagine, we spoke for a while on this.
7/ And then we talked about WHY people lived so separately STILL after MLKJr, after so many icons they've studied fought against segregation in mass movements. I referred back to the @NPRCodeSwitch ep around race & schools, w/ @BDTSpelman's research, @GeeDee215 & @RadioMirage.
8/ That, 1. in a larger society that has racial power dynamics, that people take protective measures to fight the racism against them, so answering @BDTSpelman's question "Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together In The Cafeteria?" (Go read the book, I haven't finished it yet)
9/ 2. Ppl make friendships based on proximity, so if you're in a segregated area, as most white & Black ppl are in the US, you're gonna mostly have friends of ur own race. According to the @NPRCodeSwitch podcast ep, white & Black ppl hav fewer interracial friendships as a result.
10/10 cont'd. and Asian ppl have more interracial friendships in America simply because there's fewer of us (we make up 6% of the US) and Latinx ppl have the most interracial friendships.
In short, we still have a massive Problem We All Live With.
In short, we still have a massive Problem We All Live With.
Thanks, @GeeDee215, @RadioMirage, and @NPRCodeSwitch for that marvelous podcast episode and series with @deathsexmoney. Everyone should listen to those episodes, and #teachers gotta reflect on it and #teach it as well.
