Hundreds respond to race column

Is the Seattle school system too obsessed with race?

Is this institution dividing us in the name of diversity? Do I need to go to white privilege training?

These were some of the questions raised by a column I wrote last Sunday, describing my own family's experience attending — and then withdrawing from — a mostly black elementary school.

The column featured school-district employees making a host of controversial statements related to race — from being suspicious of the "white charity" of school fundraising to feeling uncomfortable about having white people in and around a largely black school.

The article drew hundreds of responses from readers, including dozens from Seattle School District employees.

Most who work in the schools requested anonymity. Most of those said the flaw in the column was that it didn't go far enough.

"I'm a teacher, I need to be anonymous," said one caller. "I'm a big believer in what Martin Luther King said about judging people not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. This district pigeonholes everyone by skin color. You have no idea what a destructive force that has been in the schools."

Other employees described how the topic of race permeates the district's bureaucratic culture. One maintenance employee said he had been sent to 35 race- and cultural-awareness training sessions over the past decade.

"Some of the classes were good and made you think," he said. "But after about five of them I had kind of gotten the point."

Zoe Zachmeier, who now teaches in Tacoma, said she left Seattle schools in part because she felt she had to defend "again and again" her motivations for being a white woman who wanted to work with children of color in a mostly black school.

"The crazy thing is, I began my teaching career in Oakland. My motives for working in that district were never questioned. It was enough that I wanted to help kids."

But a principal, Chris Drape of The New School, a public elementary in Southeast Seattle, said both my column and my experience as a parent were textbook examples of "unexamined white privilege."

"What I see in your column is what I all-too-often see in our Seattle white community — wanting to have the conversation take place on our terms, wanting to see solutions that work on our terms," wrote Drape, who is white.

Some black readers agreed.

"Maybe you had good intentions," wrote William Wood, who said he worked for a school district but didn't say which one. "[But] I personally have no sympathy for you or the other white parents who had to leave Madrona. What did you think an inner-city school was like? Did you think it would be cool for your children to hang out with the 'brothers' and 'sisters' and get some culture, while not having to deal with the reality of that life?"

Elliott Bronstein, who is white and works in the Seattle Office for Civil Rights, said my column was a galling insult to many parents with school-age children.

"They have endured a system run mostly by whites and on white terms," he wrote. "And for them to be told, 'Oh, it's the District, they're obsessed with race over there. They are driving us farther apart.'

"Yeah. Right. Because we as white people have worked so hard to make things okay."

I drove down to see Drape, whose student body is mostly black and Asian. He conceded there is "resistance to integration" in the school district, but that it comes from a desire to protect kids of color from being trampled by middle- or upper-class whites.

He said liberal whites love the idea of diversity as long as it comes at no cost to them. He used me as an example.

People like me may want our kids sitting next to kids of color, he said, but not if it means giving up any educational extras, such as art and music. He noted that when things didn't go my way — the classes became overcrowded, a Spanish-language program was canceled so the school could focus on passing the standardized test — I bailed.

"We're not going to be able to change things until we give up on that self-protection of ourselves and our kids," he said. "It means setting aside our own agendas, and understanding that education is about a lot more than advanced academics and enrichment activities."

Such as social justice, he said.

This is admirable, but I'm not sure schools or most parents are ready for such a lofty assignment. It seems challenge enough to have strong academics and a few creative programs. And maybe it's my white privilege showing again, but I still don't get why anyone of any race or class should have to give up music or foreign language. Or recess.

Some black parents made this point in very strong terms.

One, who asked not to be named because she has a relative at Madrona, said she sees well-meaning educators shortchanging black schools in the name of helping them. Shouldn't inner-city schools have private-school extras, too? Instead, some schools end up "teaching poor and working class students to be soldiers and menial laborers," she wrote.

Carolyn Hubbard, who is black and went to Madrona and then Garfield High in the '50s and '60s, said many South Seattle schools have become dramatically more segregated since then — proof to her the district's focus on race isn't working.

"The more they talk about race, the more segregated it becomes," she said. "I went to Madrona and it had blacks and Jews and Italians and Asians. Now instead of educating all the kids, they're worrying about what color people are.

"They should forget about color. Raise the standards for all the kids, and if they can't handle it, then they get held back."

I don't know if all this talk about race helps or hurts. But it's out there. One of the candidates for superintendent, Greg Thornton, seemed surprised that in Seattle, "everywhere I go it's about race."

"Folks, it's time we stop talking about it and let's deal with it," he said.

OK. I'm not sure what that means. I only hope he's a lot better at it than I am.

Reach Danny Westneat at 206-464-2086 or dwestneat@seattletimes.com.