Alina Adams Guest Blog: OUR KIND OF PEOPLE

My older son attends first grade at one of those New York City, Upper East Side, very exclusive, very posh private schools that prompt novels like Admissions and The Ivy Chronicles, and people outside of Manhattan to go, “Oh, isn’t that the school from “The Nanny Diaries?” (Yes, for the record, it is the school the boy from “The Nanny Diaries” gets admitted to. Also, for the record, in our two years there, I have yet to meet anyone who even comes close to the skewering parental descriptions in the book.)

Last week was Grandparents Visiting Day. My African-American father-in-law attended for the first time.

My father-in-law grew up in Virginia under Jim Crow before moving to Harlem in the 1960s. He served in the Korean War, and managed a Brooklyn public hospital for thirty years. He has very strong opinions about Blacks in America, the White power structure and the inequities of the race-based class system.

My father-in-law was shocked by the reception he, as a Black man, received at school.

Nobody cared.

Really.

Manhattan’s elite; the blue-blooded families that boast Senators, Ambassadors, broadcasters, philanthropists, European royalty, Wall Street Masters of the Universe (sorry, a “Bonfire of the Vanities” reference), and assorted other movers and/or shakers weren’t shocked, surprised or offended to discover an interloper in their midst. They were, in fact, rather indifferent.

Not that my son is the only child of color in his class. There are two other Black boys, several Hispanic children, and over a dozen Asians. (Not to mention a few Jews – where will this travesty end!)

Manhattan’s top-tier private schools have a reputation as being exclusively white and snobbishly old moneyed. People like us (Black, Jewish, unmonyed), my husband and I were told by those who didn’t actually attend, wouldn’t feel comfortable there.

But, the fact is, we felt much more comfortable there then we did at any of the “progressive” schools we toured. Where, the minute my husband and I walked through the Open House door, an Admissions Director would make a beeline over to us and proceed to extol the wonderful diversity of their school and how dedicated they are teaching all their subjects in a culturally sensitive manner.

My husband has a nuclear engineering degree from M.I.T. He was not aware that there was a culturally sensitive manner in which to teach arithmetic.

What he was aware of, from his own background of being the only Black child in an all-White class, was that he would rather his son were with people who were too polite to make a fuss about differences, rather than with those who made it the centerpiece of their curriculum.

Hence, my father-in-law’s shock.

But, by the end of the day, even he had gotten into the spirit of things. That evening, he told us a long story about a boy sliding into home plate headfirst, but said he didn’t know the boy’s name and wasn’t sure how to describe him.

When I asked my son whom Grandpa was talking about, I learned that the boy my father-in-law didn’t know how to describe was… another Black child in the class.

Okay, this is Kyra here. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this one. In the meantime check out Alina's website to learn more about her and her books!

Kyra Davis
http://www.kyradavis.com/
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