Here’s an interesting article about private schools and teenagers doing the hard work to address white privilege
I have to say - I don’t think that these NYC private schools are really making any impact by reducing the problem of lack of inclusiveness to race. Saying that there is “unearned white privilege” is overly simplistic and negates any effort to tackle real problems.
I am not trying to be insensitive, but when was the last time a kid was depressed and on the brink of suicide (or actually committed suicide) just because they were NOT white. There is always something else besides simply race that is not being addressed by these overhyped seminars. I think that the “It gets better” campaign aimed at homosexual kids is a much better approach. Or the “Free to be you and me” campaign in the 70s and 80s.
Recognizing that there are bullies and that high school is a difficult time for everyone who feels different (which is almost everyone) will be more effective in achieving the goal of inclusiveness and celebration of different ideas, cultures, and ethnicities. Exposing bullies as ignorant and insecure oafs whose behavior will not be tolerated is more effective than pointing out the obvious privilege given to wealthy individuals (which is where the real unearned privilege is because those kids did nothing to earn that wealth).
The article strengthens the argument to avoid these segregated day schools and look to boarding schools where kids are living, playing, and learning together (ideally) if inclusiveness is desired. This principle is part of the long-term strategic plan of most boarding schools and not just a special day with a press release for the new york times.
I appreciate your opinion, but I have to disagree. These workshops are more sophisticated than anti bullying or finger pointing. They are meant to give young adults the opportunity to recognize what most adults are way too uncomfortable to address. I strongly believe that teenagers are hungry to fix a lot of the flaws that society has prepared for them. In order to do that everyone needs to be very honest about what is not working, that is NOT a simple task. I am absolutely sure that boarding schools are not immune, the aggressions faced by their minority students are very real. That goes for on campus and off campus. The article focuses on private schools in New York but this dialogue is happening in many circles, including public schools, colleges, work places, social media… on-line forums 
As the article states “This is messy work…But these conversations are necessary.”
I saw The Prep School Negro and it is a great testimony on the cost of assimilation. These are big ideas, that are far reaching. I’m eager to see http://www.notracistmovie.com/
FWIW most of these day schools that you are dismissing as segregated are much more multi ethnic and multi cultural than most suburban high schools which are segregated based on the way we live in America today which is largely segregated. The elite NYC schools have made pretty incredible strides in diversification and although it is absolutely (and obviously) true that they can not offer the geographic diversity of a BS it is false to suggest that they are segregated. They have large endowments and FA budgets and they use them well and with good intentions just as BS do
Totally agree with you on that, @LifeLongNYer. I live in Boston, and the private day school that my younger kids go to is significantly more diverse (both ethnically and socioeconomically) than the public schools that many of my friends’ kids attend.
I’m going to agree with both sides here.
Our experience, here in rural NJ, reflects that of soxmom…our local public school is WHITE. The Princeton-area K-12 private school our girls went to through 8th grade was much more diverse — racially, but I think also socio-economically. It had kids of color whose parents were well off and also a good number of kids who I’m assuming were on scholarship. As a mixed race family, we felt better about sending our kids to a school with a higher percentage of minority students (in addition to all the other upsides of this private school vs. our LPS).
However, again as a minority parent, I do appreciate the efforts of my younger daughter’s school to focus on diversity. I’m surprised the school wasn’t mentioned in the NYT piece as it is in the orbit of NYC. The all-school summer reading book was “Wonder”, about a kid with a cranio-facial anomaly. I read it and really enjoyed it…it made me think about how it’s human nature to create the “other”…people who “are not like me/us”. Whether that’s due to cues of skin color or clothing or some other trait…we all do it. I don’t know if it’s a light-switch thing, where you have one meeting or speaker or even day of diversity and everything is 100% perfect, but I do appreciate the effort to at least start/continue the dialog on this front.
Note that the schools mentioned in the NYT article all (at least to me) have the air of being very progressive (Friends schools are Quaker and they are extremely progressive/liberal)…so I think this “movement” (if you can even call it that) is that widespread among private schools/BS.
@sevendad sorry I should have specified suburban PUBLIC schools. I did not mean to imply that other privates outside of NYC aren’t also trying to diversify, I think its harder geographically and also was only wanting to speak to my own personal experience. As a majority parent I totally appreciate the efforts of the schools to focus on diversity. Although you lost me on Wonder, I felt it was a little sappy….
@LifeLong: Call me a sap, then. 
I was surprised by how much I liked it/it made me think about the concept of the “other”…especially for tween/YA book. BTW, in the first long paragraph of my post #5 I was agreeing with you…that private day schools can be more integrated that an LPS, in an out of metro areas. My second long para is an attempt to push back on heartburner’s post #1…I believe that diversity programs can have an impact.
My point is that focusing on race is overly simplistic. Yes - celebrate diversity, but consider all that is diverse in our kids besides race. Aside from this, I think that there is a certain amount of hypocrisy for every non-white student in these schools to claim to not have “privilege.” As a public school student, I can tell you that many of those kids are in a privileged position will look down upon their less educated classmates from less prestigious schools when they get to college. They should find a better theme for supporting the idea of inclusiveness instead of decrying “white privilege.”
@sevendad understood, same page. We will have to argue over the YA books in a different setting, I have vowed to stop reading the contemporary ones. I will take A Separate Peace or To Kill A Mockingbird hands down any day
As the article states, celebrating diversity and fixing racism are two very different things. Recognizing privilege does not mean being punitive, it’s about gaining empathy outside of one’s own experience… as @sevendad said so well, our eagerness to fixate on otherness is often an obstacle which… creates a lot of systemic racism. I think it’s important to carefully note a difference between privilege and white privilege. White privilege is carefully analyzing a systemic issue in racism. Change is hard work, so is solving problems.
A very interesting response… about action versus conversation http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/03/15/the-privilege-of-checking-white-privilege.html
A lot of people are going to disagree with this statement but as a minority student at an independent school, I personally found it much easier and more comfortable to go to a school that was not ethnically diverse. Do I see the benefits in the diversity at my school? Yes. I know in the end, I will be grateful for this opportunity, but in the moments that you live through it, it isn’t always the best thing, especially for the minorities. So for those cheering these schools for being ethnically diverse, remember that “18.5% on financial aid” is still a minority, who may very much feel uncomfortable about this. Sometimes “segregated schools” are just easier on students, especially those who have been taught to harbor hate agains “the privileged” and only embrace their ethnicity. Don’t get me wrong. I know about Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education and how hard people fought for integrated schools. However, sometimes in the midst of “ethnically-diverse” and “multi-cultural,” people get so enticed by good-sounding words that they forget what it is actually like for the student.
I do agree that it goes beyond race. I think the “awkwardness” and uncomfortable situations actually mostly happen in cases of socioeconomic background. This is often the biggest impact on how one is raised and the way that they view the world. With people from such opposite ends of the spectrum, there is bound to be conflict. I think there are few racist students at boarding school, but there are many who don’t understand each other’s culture and upbringing.
Have you listened to This American Life this week http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/550/three-miles
As a NYer with children in these NY private schools, I connected with the article. Not only are we a minority but we receive FA. Our school and their diversity group has done great things (and still are) to diversify our community so it can reflect the melting pot that NYC is. I don’t think these seminars, movie nights, etc are overhyped. Our school (and many others) are inclusive and not segregated. My local public schools are way more segregated. Our diversity group works very hard to fight for acceptance…for everyone. Our community is very diverse (race, socioeconomic, same sex families, one parent families, ect) and work very hard on everyone’s behalf to speak on the issues at hand. It may be 2015 but we are still having issues of racist views, dealing with prejudices against same sex families and these issues needs to be addressed. Our school simply does not have these movie nights or seminars, they work daily to reinforce, promote and educate on the issues of race, bullying, acceptance, empathy, sincerity, integrity and humanity. Our classrooms have daily community meetings and if a child wants to discuss something to do with race or acceptance, the school gives them that platform to do so. I believe wholeheartedly by knowing so many people in the schools that were mentioned in this article, that these schools also do much more than what was mentioned. I will also say that there are other NYC private schools that don’t but even these stuffy old school traditional schools are changing…just a little slower than the others.
I’ve been a part of the private school community since 2003 and I have seen a lot of change for the better and somethings haven’t changed. I’ve seen an increase in families of color, families on FA and also an increase in same sex families. Unfortunately what has stayed the same in my experiece is the assumption that I am the nanny. I cannot tell you how many times this has happened and it’s a yearly thing come September. To be honest, I do enjoy seeing them squirm when I inform them that I am the parent and not the nanny. One thing good that does come from this is that a discussion is started.
Would like to address what heartburner said about when was the last time a kid was depressed about not being white? Fortunately I know five kids who have had a hard time about this. They Are biracial children and had a very hard time not having the same hair as their friends or not having the same skin color. Two of these children were in my daughter’s class unfortunately their depression let into eating disorders.
I applaud what the schools are doing. These situations are very hard to deal with and will not be resolved overnight but you have to start somewhere. So many children have questions, questions that their parents may not want to answer or may not know how to answer. The fact that the schools give these children a chance to ask these questions and get them answered is a great thing.
7D is correct, The schools mentioned in the article are progressive schools (as is the school my kids attend).
I am wrestling with the ideas from John McWhorter’s article. They’re tough but I think have some validity? @sevendad has a post with some great comments about the podcast http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/18218943#Comment_18218943
@NYCMomof3 my kids have been wholly in private (progressive) schools thanks to great financial aid. I am white, am a product of a great private school education but I don’t have the income my parents afforded for my schooling. I wanted to share that for a number of years I was a housecleaner and sometimes I ended up cleaning the bedrooms of my kids schoolmates. 
It wasn’t that bad but I have definitely had some raw moments being seen as the servant. Snort!
@heartburner Does someone have to be dying for an issue to be important? I agree that socioeconomic differences are valuable to discuss as well, but they can be discussed in conjunction with race. The two issues intersect in so many ways. The truth is that it will be impossible to have a nuanced discussion on race if white people can’t accept that they do benefit from white privilege, or as you say, “white privilege”.
@natakwali Agreed - I think that the effort to openly discuss white privilege is worthwhile in high schools that are trying to adopt a culture of inclusion. I didn’t mean to downplay how important this is.
@NYCMomof3 I regret my comment discounting how adolescents might feel about their heritage. They should be proud of their background, but I can understand how this might not be case especially during this time in their lives.
I was concerned about a disproportionate amount of emphasis on race in these programs designed to promote a culture of inclusiveness that certainly belongs in our schools. I am especially concerned about attitudes that students, teachers, and administrators have towards homosexuals which I think is underemphasized and spans all races.
@heartburner I can assure you that these schools mentioned in this article do no discount the horrible actions towards the LGBT. Their diversity groups not only take on issues of race but also the hate towards the LGBT community. I’ve attended many talks which most of these schools have hosted and the commitment towards acceptance for all is heartwarming and hopeful. I can’t say the same for other places around our nation and I agree with you…it’s concerning.