[lovelyivy84]

Originally posted by 96sweet
My brother and I went to private schools, and I was scared of black people for a long time. I saw black people every day, but they either worked for my mom - and I knew them, or they were her patients. My mom insisted that I went to an HBCU and I refused to get out of the car on the first day. That fear didn't come from my parents. I think fitting in and functioning socially or different. There are some real weirdos who have been in school since day one. I don't want him to LEARN to conform. That could limit his creativity.

That's a shame. I also went to a private school, but if anything my experience reinforced the fact that I WAS black and not that different from the people who worked at teh school or the people who lived on my block. I didn't feel separate from them or afraid of them because the rich white kids were very careful to let me know from day one where I stood. My family is black. My friends were black (the small minority group at the school). I am black. How could I be afraid of black? That was how I saw it.

I also think it's sad that you were forced to go to an HBCU. I can see why your mother did it if you were indeed afraid of black people, but I dont think you can really learn to appreciate a culture by force. I never considered going to an HBCU because of my private school experience. But it wasn't about being afraid of anyone, it's because my school was a prep school in the best sense- the whole point of me going there was to go to an Ivy League school, and so I did.

I don't want my kid to always be worried about what people think of him. I'd rather him not care. So if you are saying that the people you encountered were weird, but didn't care, to me, that is a good thing.

Me too. I definitely felt that to be positive, which is why I noted that it was on the bright side.

As far as race goes, I don't think he'll get an appreciation of the race in public or private school. African or African American history isn't priority in traditional American education systems. I think he'll learn more to appreciate his race at home with me, than he would in a classroom. That is where I got my appreciation from. My black history books were at my house. We don't watch TV
(just public) for that very reason. I don't want him to think that all white people are lawyers and all blacks are criminals, or that we just sing, dance, and jirate in videos (also known as Black Entertainment Television).

Race is much more complicated than something you learn on BET or from Eyes on The Prize. It is a combination of your experiences at home, with the media and with your peers. Talking to your Mom is only one small part of it. The concept of race changes, and those changes are reflected in how we interact socially. We ALL learn from our peers, in good ways and bad ways.

It's a bad idea to protect your child from learning about life or race by homeschooling, because while you are afraid that he might pick up bad things, you might also prevent him from participating in the good. Change happens rapidly, and things that you or I might not appreciate but are nonetheless positive are sure to be found in or by our children, and the ideas that they spread. It's important that kids have access to those ideas. Black and white children interacting was the momentum behind the civil rights movement. They shared an ideal that was completely foreign to many of their parents, and that changed the world.

My thinking for home schooling came from thinking of the things that I taught my son daily that I know he wouldn't get at school. One day we were leaving the daycare and he was struggling to hold the door for his classmates mom. She grabbed the door and said, I got it. He said, "men hold the door for ladies." His favorite quote is, "If a man doesn't work, he doesn't eat." He says "please" and "thank you," and excuse me when he passes gas or burps. He eats with a fork, and uses his napkin. He knows that some people can't hear and that they speak with sign language, so he doesn't stare and point. To me that is what it means to know how to interact socially. He functions well in society without offending anyone.

Those are absolutely things you learn in the home. I don't feel that going to school would prevent him from learning them or grid them out of him.

There's a difference between being socially inept, and not being "cool" or "in". I wasn't even close to being "cool" or "in" until I was an adult, and i didn't care, which made my younger years a lot less stressful and painful than others that I knew.

I didn't mean cool. I meant that these kids were barely functional in group settings.

I was not making a judgement on how you choose or plan to raise your son. I was merely relating my experience with homeschooled children.