Did You Ever Attend A Truly Integrated School?

[MaybeACoordinator 8,349]

By that I mean not just racially, but economically.

My Catholic high school in Houston was probably 25 percent minority, but almost all of them were Asians, wealthy South Americans, and a few Nigerians. My alma mater seems more ethnically diverse than it ever has been, but I don't know think it crosses class lines any more than it ever has.

On the other hand, I went to public schools in Tennessee in the mid-70s, and while we didn't have a UN-type student body, the school was about 60-40 white and black, and some of those black kids (and a smaller number of the whites) were dog-ass poor. It was a real eye-opener to go to kindergarten with kids who didn't have the things you took for granted, or who lived in neighborhoods with high crime, and so on. Seems like since most of America gave up on that experiment, and retreated to private and/or magnet schools, we've lost most capacity to empathize with minorities. 

This was my third grade class. One year after this my dad and stepmom sent me to an all-white school where our fight song was Dixie and we had rebel flags on our football helmets. Not sure why -- neither of them was into that shit, exactly -- but after four years of knowing the real Nashville on many levels, I was put in bubble-wrap, along with a bunch of other kids around that same time. It wasn't like I was getting into fights with the black kids -- shit, they would ref my fights with other white kids. 

Just feels like we squandered a big opportunity in the 1970s and '80s. All of us in this picture came from adjacent neighborhoods, so it wasn't like we were bused from miles around to make up some quota. And no, it wasn't like many of us had opposite-race best friends, but we understood each other and got along. I never heard any of the white kids dropping n-bombs in school. (I guess I didn't at the genteel private school I attended after this one, either, but that was because it was "common" to use that word.)

Not sure about Nashville, but there are very few elementary schools like this in inner city Houston now. They are almost all overwhelmingly white and Asian,  or all black, or all Hispanic, or some mix of black and Hispanic, with no whites and Asians. 

So we don't get to know each other as kids, and now that the draft / National Service has been dead for almost 60 years, we don't get to know each other as young adults either. We are not putting in the effort to E the Unum from the Pluribus. 

 

 

[Incredulity 11,657]

Well I am sure the definition of “truly integrated” can be argued ad infintium.

Sub the black kids in that photo for hispanic and you have my experience.  Middle class to dirt poor, in both racial groups.  Frankly race wasn’t really an issue that things were managed too.  I recall slurs being informally used, but not persuasive or commonly.

I view alot of what is currently classified as racism is more aptly described as a slight.  I don’t hold any hope that humans are going to stop slighting each other, so that makes the current state of race relations pretty much fucked.

 

[Royalfan5 2,353]

We had a Catholic kid 

[Judge Roybeanbag 11,819]

Are you the dork wearing the Cub Scout uni?

[EE2B 1,565]

Are you the dork wearing the Cub Scout uni?

I was going to guess that or the one wearing the mustard yellow shirt and shoes/socks.

[heso 2,787]

My high school of 6-700 had 1 black kid and 1 Asian kid,so I guess you could say we were integrated.

[Trey3216 15,345]

1 hour ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

By that I mean not just racially, but economically.

My Catholic high school in Houston was probably 25 percent minority, but almost all of them were Asians, wealthy South Americans, and a few Nigerians. My alma mater seems more ethnically diverse than it ever has been, but I don't know think it crosses class lines any more than it ever has.

On the other hand, I went to public schools in Tennessee in the mid-70s, and while we didn't have a UN-type student body, the school was about 60-40 white and black, and some of those black kids (and a smaller number of the whites) were dog-ass poor. It was a real eye-opener to go to kindergarten with kids who didn't have the things you took for granted, or who lived in neighborhoods with high crime, and so on. Seems like since most of America gave up on that experiment, and retreated to private and/or magnet schools, we've lost most capacity to empathize with minorities. 

This was my third grade class. One year after this my dad and stepmom sent me to an all-white school where our fight song was Dixie and we had rebel flags on our football helmets. Not sure why -- neither of them was into that shit, exactly -- but after four years of knowing the real Nashville on many levels, I was put in bubble-wrap, along with a bunch of other kids around that same time. It wasn't like I was getting into fights with the black kids -- shit, they would ref my fights with other white kids. 

Just feels like we squandered a big opportunity in the 1970s and '80s. All of us in this picture came from adjacent neighborhoods, so it wasn't like we were bused from miles around to make up some quota. And no, it wasn't like many of us had opposite-race best friends, but we understood each other and got along. I never heard any of the white kids dropping n-bombs in school. (I guess I didn't at the genteel private school I attended after this one, either, but that was because it was "common" to use that word.)

Not sure about Nashville, but there are very few elementary schools like this in inner city Houston now. They are almost all overwhelmingly white and Asian,  or all black, or all Hispanic, or some mix of black and Hispanic, with no whites and Asians. 

So we don't get to know each other as kids, and now that the draft / National Service has been dead for almost 60 years, we don't get to know each other as young adults either. We are not putting in the effort to E the Unum from the Pluribus. 

 

 

They sure made y’all sit on top of each other.  Couldn’t do that now with all the obese kids 

[Gil Bang 25,922]

My HS was about 60% blacks and Mexicans

[Lat22 4,010]

Mine was 99% Mexican American. 

[Chuychanga 133]

I went to L.L Campbell Elementary in East Austin for 4th grade.  That was the year Austin began busing kids across town to go to school outside of their neighborhood to integrate the schools more.    And this was long before East Austin was a hipster hotspot.   I was one of four white kids in our class, all four of use were bussed over from our neighborhood off Burnet Road in North Austin. 

 I don’t remember it being too bad but my parents were divorced and my dad lived in a better school district and they decided that was a good time for us to move in with dad.  So I just did that one year. That elementary school was somewhere over near Chicon St and it has long ago been closed.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

[deadshank 24,652]

Pretty white. 3 blacks, 20 or so Hispanic, 2 Iranians, a smattering of Jewish kids and a few Asians.  

 

[T’Boo Ted Marshall 2,732]

Where is Raptor Roger?

[FartingMonk 3,606]

I went to West Orange Stark so yeah.  I will say it was truly integrated.  Rich kids both black and white.  Kids poor as fuck both black and white.

[Guest]

29 minutes ago, Gil Bang said:

My HS was about 60% blacks and Mexicans

similar here.   55% Hispanic/ Latino. 5%Black  40% Oppressors

 

Like WOS, all of our kids went to the same school, regardless of income, as well.  No privates.

Edited July 23, 2018 by slorch

[CooterBrown 18,004]

My graduating class was about 50% white trash, the rest Mexican except for two black guys, and one South Pacific Islander (his dad knocked up a Hawaiian while in the navy).

My kids go to Gullett in Austin and there’s more transgendered kids than minorities. It has to be 98% white.

[Bill Brasky 1,443]

I went to a falsely integrated school 

[Judge Roybeanbag 11,819]

My K thru 8 was about 60% black and Hispanic and 40% white, except most of us whites were boys. Generally only had one white girl in my class at any given time. But there were only like 15 people total in my grade. 

[austingirl 2,191]

There were exactly two black people at my high school when I was there, and they were siblings. PNG was in no way diverse. But, when we lived in Port Arthur, I went to Tyrell Elementary and then Booker T. Washington, and BTW at least was pretty diverse. I was in the magnet program there and it we had people from all walks of life. This was in the late 80s.

Edited July 23, 2018 by austingirl

[Helobious 9,451]

I went to a small private school that was mostly white, but it was only a K-6 school. After that I only attended public schools and none of them were anything less than 85% hispanic. As a white-looking hispanic person I really never felt out of place anywhere growing up.

Also, I think a better-worded OP would've been "have you ever attended a truly diverse school?" Integrated & diverse are 2 different things. 

[former alkie 72]

Biggest high school in Fort Worth, but this was over 35 yrs ago.

Probably 50% white, other 50% were black/mexican/other 

Great mix of socials/athletes, stoners, ropers

Great times

[Larry T. Spider 1,746]

2 hours ago, Chuychanga said:

I went to L.L Campbell Elementary in East Austin for 4th grade.  That was the year Austin began busing kids across town to go to school outside of their neighborhood to integrate the schools more.    And this was long before East Austin was a hipster hotspot.   I was one of four white kids in our class, all four of use were bussed over from our neighborhood off Burnet Road in North Austin. 

 I don’t remember it being too bad but my parents were divorced and my dad lived in a better school district and they decided that was a good time for us to move in with dad.  So I just did that one year. That elementary school was somewhere over near Chicon St and it has long ago been closed.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is that not the same Campbell that’s off MLK on the east side?

I taught pre-k at a public elementary school in pville and had 12 different languages amongst my 36 students. English, Spanish, Russian, Ibo, Telugu, Farsi, Arabic, Urdu, Somali, French, Vietnamese, Korean. It was like the little United Nations. They were almost all lower middle class so not much range as far as income though.

[MaybeACoordinator 8,349]

3 hours ago, Judge Roybeanbag said:

Are you the dork wearing the Cub Scout uni?

 

3 hours ago, EE2B said:

I was going to guess that or the one wearing the mustard yellow shirt and shoes/socks.

Nope, neither of them. I don't know why that kid was in his Cub Scout Uni. It wasn't even Cub Scout day.

I was in the Cubs in a six-man pack with three of the black kids in the pic. 

[52-80 19,147]

1 kid had a porsche boxster, another a mercedes slk 230, and another a golf gti.

and those were the 3 nicest cars in the lot.  everyone else was working class.

[Jimbaround 975]

Paul Revere Middle School

That should say it all.

[Guest]

23 minutes ago, Jimbaround said:

Paul Revere Middle School

That should say it all.

This kind:

or this one:

[Knoxtnhorn 5,971]

Richardson Heights Elem. School - Not so much.

West Jr. High (Richardson) - Moreso - especially when the "gangster" MS down the street closed my last year. I went from, "What the hell is a gang?" to "Oh, those guys beating up the principal must be a gang".

Garland High - 50/50

First teaching job (Knoxville)  95% black, 3% mixed, 2% white.  No other minorities as the school didn't have an ESL program.

Current teaching job (Garland) I'd say about 50% Hispanic, 25% black, 10% white, 15% Vietnamese, mixed, Middle Eastern.

[utee94 15,808]

Austin, I was bused to Webb Elementary on E. St. John's for 4-5-6, and Martin Junior High on Haskell for 7 and 8.  They were highly integrated because it was forced integration, of course.

Anderson High, on the other hand, was pretty lily...

 

 

[You don't know me 1,161]

Junior high and high school in Saint Louis.  They bused a bunch of inner-city kids out to our school in the burbs.  This was the early 80's.  One of the kids was in my science class and sat next to me.  He was always tired.  Turned out that they got picked up around 5:00 AM or some such unholy hour.  Kid hated the forced busing, but did like the school. 

Another guy was on our wrestling team.  He was our heavyweight.  One day we were running sprints in the hallway.  We were lined up on both sides of the hallway and the sprinters would run between the lines down the middle of the hallway.  One of the white trash kids got bumped by the heavyweight who was finishing his sprint.  Next thing I know, the 'n' word flies.  I thought the white trash kid had seen his last day on earth, but the heavyweight had a ton of restraint. 

[Gardner Barnes 1,562]

I went to a DISD high school. We were about 60/40 minority. Frankly, other than the day the cops that beat Rodney King were acquitted, I never really noticed the integration (that day there were protests in the halls and outside).

The kids at my school — black, white, hispanic, were just my friends; and they still are.

[HouTex 1,866]

My HS was about 60% blacks and Mexicans

This. No privates and one large high school for the town. 30% hispanic, 30% black and 40% white. There were poor farmer’s kids and a hand full of rich kids. Mostly very middle class. This was in the late 70’s. It doesn’t fit the modern national view, but everyone got along. We all played sports together from a very early age. Race issues/problems were nonexistent. Certainly no one here will believe it.

[Thetexashammer 1,062]

All of my schools were pretty much equal thirds, similar to the Houston population.

I did put my daughter in a school where she might have been the only white person. Definitely only one in her grade.

[Longhornfan1024 1,707]

Went to Mac Arthur in San Antonio, and it was pretty integrated, though primarily Latinos.  If I had to guess, when I went there I'd say it as probably 40% White, 40% Latino/Hispanic, 15% Black, 5% other (rough guesses).  According to the googles it's currently 72% minority.  Coming to UT was very different since I had a lot of Black and Hispanic friends in San Antonio, but few interactions with them at UT (Black students more so than Latino students).  I did, however, meet a whole lot more Asians at UT since there were maybe two or three in my entire class in high school.

Edited July 23, 2018 by Longhornfan1024

[El Diablo 4,232]

12 years of Catholic confinement and it was 90+% white. This was in Texas so there was a smattering of Mexicans, 2 or 3 bleks, a token Jew. I thought it was pretty diverse.

[David Dennison 18,851]

5 hours ago, Jimbaround said:

Paul Revere Middle School

That should say it all.

It does, but it's still weird and very Houston considering all of the middle class neighborhoods surrounding Revere. Of course, there are also loads of apartment complexes, also very Houston.

[Red Six 131]

12 hours ago, former alkie said:

Biggest high school in Fort Worth, but this was over 35 yrs ago.

Probably 50% white, other 50% were black/mexican/other 

Great mix of socials/athletes, stoners, ropers

Great times

I attended this same high school about ten years later.

There are very few schools that can pull off what this one did/does in terms of ethnic and class diversity, as well as high-caliber academics. The kids ran the gamut from elite families in the most exclusive neighborhoods, to the projects. And everyone seemed to get along. It was amazing.

But the athletics -- they were horrible. Except for golf. It helps to have kids who grew up playing on a PGA course.

[RDCanecutter 26,401]

16 hours ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

2,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,x,1

[RDCanecutter 26,401]

Kindergarten: private, all-white. One day a teacher was sick or something so they marched us across the street to an antebellum house that was the first home of John Tyler Morgan Academy, one of those private schools that sprang up all over the south to defy desegregation. They sat us down to draw. I drew, despite two older girls trying to talk me into doing random scribbles. They probably inherited vast plantation wealth and ended up in SF as coke-whores. So anyway I spent a day at Morgan Academy too.

Grade School: public, almost all white. I had two or three black classmates. Looking back, some of those "white" kids were Filipino or part-this or that, it really didn't register.

Junior High: public, about 2/3 black. My first day there we sat in the gym, and the band was practicing a song. The song was the theme from "Shaft". They played it dozens of times. Dummadum, dummadum, dummadum, DUNNNNN.

High School: public, slightly more than half black. Would have been a lot more if so many of those kids had not dropped out. As before, a sprinkling of various ethnicities but the rest mostly British-type white.

Social: had everything from the richest to the poorest kids in town, both white and black. Lots of Air Force kids from the base who had lived all over so you felt like you were connected to England, Japan, Germany.

The town was essentially in decline, but a pretty high percentage of classmates made their ways to Hollywood, NYC, DC.

Other school options locally were Morgan Academy (for those whose mamas watched Scarlet O'Hara and then ate a cheese sandwich), Meadowview Christian (skoal-dippin dudes on football schollies), and three county high schools that may have been nice, or not, I got no clue.

[NameAlreadyInUse 5,111]

I went to the only public school in my town for elementary, intermediate, middle and high schools, same as all the other kids in my town. it was about 70% white, 28% mexican and 2% black with all economic levels accounted for. Last I heard, those ratios are a little more brown, with more affluence among the Mexicans than when I was a kid, but the mix is more like 60% white, 38% mexican, 2% black. The cafeteria was always integrated from the time I can remember between the races and economic classes.  The big segregation until junior high was boys vs. girls, then that started fading away in 7th and 8th grade and didn't exist in high school.  This was ~25 years ago. 

[Jimbaround 975]

2 hours ago, David Dennison said:

It does, but it's still weird and very Houston considering all of the middle class neighborhoods surrounding Revere. Of course, there are also loads of apartment complexes, also very Houston.

Yeah, in the late 80s there were a ton of government subsidized apartments that were zoned to Revere. 

[DanRydell 799]

Eanes (Westlake) schools K-12, so no. There were a decent amount of Hispanic, Middle Eastern, South Asian, and SE Asian students but almost no black students. IIRC, my only black classmate prior to a second black kid moving in around 7th grade was Earl Campbell's son.

There wasn't much economic diversity then but there was a hell of a lot more than there is now. It was still overwhelmingly professionals but it was back when people who worked for the state or the university or other sub-$100k jobs could afford to live in Westlake.

[Newdoc 3,439]

One of my kids (white) is among the 9% of her ethnicity in high school. I guess it's reversely integrated. 50% hispanic, 40% black, 9% white and 1% whatever.  80% socioeconomic disadvantaged. It's definitely been an extracurricular education for her.

[GringoSalado 1,651]

20 hours ago, Lat22 said:

Mine was 99% Mexican American. 

Same, was the only Gringo in my class until the 5th grade when the new golf course & development came online. So we went from poor farmers to poor farmers and, obviously, golfers.

[Al_4_ISU 12,453]

I grew up in the whitest county in Iowa.  99.4%, or something like that.  Class size of about 25 kids.

So, to answer the question, not even close.  The closest we had to diversity was when this really poor family from Tennessee moved in for a year.  They lived in a trailer in the only woods in the damn county.  The kids were borderline mentally disabled, and in hindsight I think the parents were making meth and just drifting from place to place.

That was our diversity.

[ImissWallyPryor 9,046]

My HS in SA was about 50:50 Hispanic:Non-Hispanic whites. Well, probably 49:49 given that blacks were about 2%. Asians were rare, except we did have the only Asian basketball coach in the country  

Economically, probably 80% were working (very middle) class, 10% were dirt poor, 10% were upper-middle with a sprinkling lower uppers.

About 1/3 lived in SA, 2/3 lived in rural areas or one of several very small communities.

What do I win?

[Eastwood 4,394]

1 hour ago, ImissWallyPryor said:

My HS in SA was about 50:50 Hispanic:Non-Hispanic whites. Well, probably 49:49 given that blacks were about 2%. Asians were rare, except we did have the only Asian basketball coach in the country  

Economically, probably 80% were working (very middle) class, 10% were dirt poor, 10% were upper-middle with a sprinkling lower uppers.

About 1/3 lived in SA, 2/3 lived in rural areas or one of several very small communities.

What do I win?

The schools on the NE side when San Antonio was at its peak "military city" in the late 90's and early 2000's had 33/33/33/1 splits on white/hispanic/black/other percentage splits. And we had zero racial issues in school. That all started to fall apart when Judson ISD built the second school, splitting the district down a fairly obvious socioeconomic line, and the military cutbacks started.

[RiceOwl 74]

My elementary and middle school were lily white with a few asians mixed in. Also some black kids from Boston who were bused in...

Went to a Jesuit High school in the city... We were probably about 70% white, 10% asian, 10% black, 10% latino (mostly dominicans and el salvadorans).

Rice honestly was pretty integrated racially and economically... 35% white, 26% asian, 15% latino, 7% black (internationals don't count as part of that statistic but we all know what 90% of those are).

[ImissWallyPryor 9,046]

44 minutes ago, Eastwood said:

The schools on the NE side when San Antonio was at its peak "military city" in the late 90's and early 2000's had 33/33/33/1 splits on white/hispanic/black/other percentage splits. And we had zero racial issues in school. That all started to fall apart when Judson ISD built the second school, splitting the district down a fairly obvious socioeconomic line, and the military cutbacks started.

Fuck Judson. All the way back to the 70s. 

[former alkie 72]

13 hours ago, Red Six said:

I attended this same high school about ten years later.

There are very few schools that can pull off what this one did/does in terms of ethnic and class diversity, as well as high-caliber academics. The kids ran the gamut from elite families in the most exclusive neighborhoods, to the projects. And everyone seemed to get along. It was amazing.

But the athletics -- they were horrible. Except for golf. It helps to have kids who grew up playing on a PGA course.

Cool, and you’re exactly right.

In 1980 or 1981, 3 TCU/Tanglewood kids got in trouble (firearms in lockers, planned to poison school via a/c system).....Legion of Doom was 3 years after I graduated.

But pretty much, everyone got along.

Wish my kids had gone to Paschal, but since it’s 2 daughters, I took the easy way and moved to Aledo

[Bert Orange 1,120]

Very integrated, and tuff. Used to have to fight the Socs in an empty lot for cred. Lost my friend to a church fire. 

[Sandman 3,403]

My dad was in the Air Force, so I went to DOD schools when we were overseas, which was a lot. It was pretty much just blacks and whites, I don't think I saw more than 3-4 Hispanic kids. Hell, I didn't know what "Hispanic" was anyway, so maybe there were more and I just didn't know. 

I never saw any racism growing up, from either side. Kids would fight but it was because they had a beef. I never heard anyone say the N-word out loud until we came back from Germany in 1986, visiting my mom's folks and my grandfather said it. My mom almost had a cow. Her dad wasn't the greatest dude. Then my dad got stationed in Oklahoma and I heard it all the time.