Great Moments In Justifying One’s Own Muted Racism: Citizen Mom Edition
As we noted earlier this week, we were totally looking forward to Amy Quinn aka Citizen Mom’s new column in the City Paper. We shouldn’t have. In one of the more baffling opening salvos we’ve ever seen, her debut today is straight off the Sarah Palin playbook: A fear-based diatribe/defense of why she’s raising her kid in the suburbs and not in the city with you, the poors and (it’s pretty much the elephant in the room here) the blacks:
“You want to know why? Let’s start with two words: persistently dangerous.”
You. Have. Got. To. Be. Fucking. Kidding. Me. Quinn’s a native ‘Yunker, and should know that (everybody else knows) this is codespeak for present day white flight. It’s fucking sickening and I hate this already, but please, do go on with your justifications:
“Philadelphia’s public schools are seen as institutions of last resort, for folks who can’t afford anything else or whose kids aren’t smart or lucky enough to get into Masterman.[...] But I still don’t see many families with school-aged kids. By the time kindergarten looms, they’ve safely decamped to Havertown or Collingswood or Glenside.”
This ignores most of what we know to be anecdotally true about pretty much every one of our friends who’s had a kid in the last few years, who have stayed and raised their kids here, not just because their lives are here, but because they also wanted to raise their kids to be citizens of the world and not of, well, the mom. Quinn also glosses over the major uptick in new charter schools here that are making a dent in finding ways around the dreaded Phila. public school system. We could paste more quotes, but honestly, every time we do, we start shouting and throwing shit around the office. Argh.
Now, we’re not going to say that if you’re living/raising a family in the suburbs, you are a de facto racist or xenophobe or just have no balls. You’re just doing it wrong. The suburbs are great for old people, Philistines and the odd brave soul who wants to bring decent coffee or tapas to Haddonfield, as well as being a place to dip into for a year or two when the city just has you totally freaked out. (Ask Sweeney, he knows all about this.) But please, do not use the city’s admittedly shit-tastic school system and your own distaste for seeking out alternatives to justify why you want to play mommy in the burbs during the week and then revel with us savages on the weekends. It’s patronizing, it’s basically a lie, and it tells us more bad shit about you than we ever, ever wanted to know.
CP: Sorry Ma, Forgot To Take Out The Trash
September 4th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
just thought I’d note I am a product of public school education, not in Philly though. My elementary, middle and high schools were all public schooling in the wacky town of Plainfield, NJ. And my I add the schools population was all African-American, some Hispanic and maybe 1% white.
And look where I’m at now!! A Latino working for a great organization GPTMC and loving the city :-).
September 4th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
That Citizen Mom article is irritating, patronizing and poorly informed. We have a 5th grader at a private school, yes we were lucky to get in, and yes, we get a lot of financial aid, but there are other options. In Center City there are three good public schools; Meredith, McCall and Greenfield. There is Independence charter school and other charter schools. Expensive private schools (which do offer serious financial aid– grants, not loans), are St. Peter’s, Friends Select and The Philadelphia School. If you’re hellbent on Catholic, there is St. Mary Interparochial. There are many options. High school is a similar story, although, yes, your precious darlings will end up on (gasp!) public transportation. None of these schools are persistently dangerous, though all the ones that aren’t public are very white and with just the slightest sense of over-entitlement.
We have never considered leaving the city, we fear the suburbs.
September 4th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
Suburbs = persistently higher property taxes. You end up paying for it one way or the other.
September 4th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
Also, when she talks about suburbs she means “Havertown or Collingswood or Glenside,” not Chester or Camden City or even Cheltenham. So the muted racism is not even very thinly veiled.
September 4th, 2008 at 4:31 pm
gotta say, i too was a bit disappointed with this debut – as much as i love Amy, the fact is I’ve lived in Center City for over 25 years and I have a slew of friends (with kids of all ages) who have lived and continue to live within the city.
Also, I certainly wouldn’t claim Center City to be “persistently dangerous”. Same goes for University City, South Philly, Fairmount, Northern Liberties and – dare I say – the “great” Northeast.
Danger is as danger does. Sure, you need to have a slightly different mentality living in the city (versus the ‘burbs), but once you adopt that mindset – live is wonderful here in the 191’s.
R
September 4th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
“Persistently dangerous” is not CitMom’s natural word choice, she’s evoking the findings of a recent study where a number of Philly’s schools were labeled “persistently dangerous” on account of their frequency of in school violence. She’s not talking about the neighborhoods Robert, but the schools themselves. She’s just riffing off of this week’s headline all over WHYY, and I’m assuming the DiNqy.
While I always thought Philebs fandom for CitMom till just now was strange, and thought this sort of castoff judgement alongtime coming (it’s not that she’s racist, she’s bridge and tunnel), calling her racist is easy an inaccurate points. Especially if the philebs fanbase’s best response is charter schools (seriously? those are basically the WalMarts at worse and BestBuys at best of public education) or Disgraceful’s “Let Them Eat Cake (in Center City)” argument.
Young Philly Politics has a good post by Helen Gym re: the state of Philly’s public schools that’s more optimistic, but even keeled. I think Ms. Gym has a tendency to see liberal arts ed defined racism wherever Amy Goodman tells her it is, accurately or no, but in this case, it’s a good piece.
But this is really a urbanite/suburbanite hater gush, I wouldn’t want actual discussion to stink up the room….
September 4th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
The racism charge is definitely wrong here. Just about every single one of my parent-friends has either a) moved out of the city or b) become catholic when their oldest turned 5. These are good, Obama-voting people who have decided that living in the city just wasn’t worth the stress of figuring out where to send that five year old. Like it or not, once you’re a parent that question looms VERY large.
I don’t agree with CM’s choice — but mine starts kindergarden next fall. What we think we will do next year often ends up changing pretty significantly when the cards are actually on the table.
September 4th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
The suburbs are a great place to raise kids… as is the city. We have lawns to play in, and a pool close by, you can ride your bike in the street and the schools are great. We also have tapas and good coffee and black people.
We’re not “doing it wrong”, it’s just a different choice. Vaya con Dios man, I hope you find peace.
September 4th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
I don’t live in Center City, but I do enjoy cake and other victuals there. I should have added that the public schools in Philadelphia would all be much better and less dangerous if they were funded at the same per pupil rate as Lower Merion, Council Rock and other wealthy suburban districts. I would like to see that money come from the federal government. Yes, money won’t solve every problem, but it would make a huge positive difference.
September 4th, 2008 at 5:54 pm
Would you rather live in Mt. Airy and send your kid to Central High School, or live in Cherry Hill and send your kid to Cherry Hill East? Why?
September 4th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
Having a “lucky” private school arrangement and poo pooing someone not wanting to “roll the dice” in their child’s education is still a “let them eat cake” argument, Disgraceful. It’d be pretty if the Fed Dept. of Ed. could just wave a wand take all the states’ and local level money for education and fund every student in the country at the same level, and ensure every student receives the same quality education. But that’s not going to happen for a long time, if ever. Again, CitzMom’s attitude is common, I think someone like Helen Gym’s is more productive, but based on the discussion going on here, Ms. Gym is more an exception than a representation of the average underinformed person on these matters.
September 5th, 2008 at 9:56 am
thanks C for the clarification – but I think the issue here is bigger than the headline. Just as Center City became ‘persistantly dangerous’ throughout the 1970s and early 1980s thanks to suburban flight, so have many of the public schools within our city … thanks to the same flight pattern.
Over the past decade plus, CC has grown less dangerous thanks to the changes within the area as well as the increase of a much more diverse block of residents.
Me thinks that the public schools in this neighborhood have grown much less dangerous to do this change as well – sure, there are always going to be hotspots throughout the city and those hotspots are, in part, caused by suburban flight.
The question is how does one start to change that flow – as for CC, it had to almost implode for it to be rebuilt; perhaps that is what’s happening within the public school system here in Philadelphia.
September 5th, 2008 at 9:57 am
Wow,
I think all comments should be prefaced with your location and location of your education.
My education at Disston Elementary in Tacony and Lincoln High in Mayfair was a joke. When I got to college I discovered art and ‘real’ music (like instruments) and something called philosophy, which blew my mind; unfortunately for me, I found out simultaneously that the rest of the people in college and been introduced to philosophy in high school.
Maybe my parents dropped the ball, or I’m just not that bright. Fine.
Also i live in the city still, and firmly reject the flight to the suburbs as unsustainable and, even at its peak, less desirable.
However, I can’t fault families for protecting their children from being left behind by shitty public schools. I know there are plenty of exceptions, like the Manayunk school named in the CP story, but chiding these people as oppose to addressing the real issue is a waste of your energy.
Also- earmuffs- I don’t consider Manayunk a anything close to a far representation of the city and don’t recall seeing much diversity up there.
September 5th, 2008 at 10:55 am
Philebs should always be late with starting it’s day, sometimes it allows for actual discussions to grow.
Robert, I understand and appreciate that view, but itt’s a lot messier than reversing “suburban flight”, since the flight itself started during the suburban housing boom of the 50s, got exacerbated by 60s and people noticed “oh shit, things are actually broken” from the 70s-80s. You’re talking about 1-2 generations of social-economic harm being done to a system.
I agree Citizen Mom’s perspective is limited, but we all have to admit it’s a common perspective (part of me thinks Cit Mom doesn’t so much believe everything she writes, so much as knows the Cit Mom demo real well). Any parent with mobility and resources will try to give their children the best education possible, be that through winning competitive scholarships for private school, maximizing one’s chances of attending a charter (if you think that’s actually a good thing), or move to a statistically better school district. To label people acting on this instinct “racist” isn’t going to help the situation. It may make you feel better than the person you’re judging, but political and economic solutions tend not to be decided by dickwaving contests.
I don’t know what the workable solution is. Again, it’d be pretty to think the Fed gov’t could just sweep across the nation and level all ed funding per student to the same level across the country; but that’s hasn’t been a viable possibility since at least the Johnson administration (and I don’t see such a radical move being pulled out of Obama’s calculated hat either). Right now, the school district is basically out of city hands and in state receivership, which is a condition most parents who have the luxury to do so avoid. Is that an implosion?
Some stats on Philly schools from the school districts own figures:
http://www.phila.k12.pa.us/about/
I’m curious whether anyone can take Cit Mom’s own district and churn up the comparable stats, particularly the expenditure per student figure, which in Philly is $11,490 according to ‘06 figures.
September 5th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
I grew up in the Far Northeast and went to a Quaker school in Jenkintown. Fuck the schools I would have attended had I not been such a mess in kindergarten that my pediatrician suggested my Mom send me to a Friends school for some peace, love, and understanding. Fuck the even greater nutcase I would have ended up without 12 years of Quaker love and tiny classrooms. I don’t ever recall friends in Parkwood raving about the fantastic education they were getting at our local public schools.
The Philly public school system is nowhere near as good as many suburban school districts. Citizen Mom didn’t need to deliver her message, but she did, and she’s fine with what she’s doing with her kid. You should be fine with it too. We moved to South Jersey as well in large part to take advantage of the school system in our town. We’re like 6 miles from Center City; it takes us no longer to get into town that it might a resident of West Philly. I have not forgotten all that I love about having grown up in Northeat Philadelphia from a family with Port Richmond roots. I’m not some candy-ass racist because I enjoy the safety of Respectable Street.
September 5th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Leveling school funding might work on a long term basis, but blanket allotments might not represent the most effective way to deal with disparities. Don’t the state funded Abbot Districts in NJ (like Camden, Newark, etc.) spend a similar amount per student as locally-funded districts in much more affluent towns? Some city districts have to address genuine cost issues that just aren’t factors in wealthier towns.
It’s really the education that should be equal, and some districts may require more funding than others to provide it. Serving the needs of a kid in a special education program is considerably more expensive than educating a non-classified student. But most people still consider that disproportionate funding to be good public policy. I think it would be beneficial if that approach was applied to all childrenin schools.
September 5th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
I’m not a parent (yet), but I recently returned to the city of Philadelphia from the uppity suburbs in Monmouth County, NJ. Sure, the school systems may seem better over there, but if you’re escaping to Jersey, be prepared to pay the highest taxes (as someone has already noted) and widespread government corruption! These things don’t necessarily make a better school system. If you’re really concerned about your kid receiving quality education, home school them for crying out loud.
Simply put, parents need to take more responsibility for educating their kids, period. I know a lot of inner city kids don’t have encouraging parents/support system or the resources to promote learning, but I’m sure Citizen Mom would certainly encourage her kid to learn and teach him stuff he possibly couldn’t learn in the school system. He would then get the added benefit of culture! The suburbs are generally devoid of culture.
Anyways, I’m glad to be back in Philadelphia, and hopefully when the time comes, I will raise a family within the city limits. I’ve been to the other side, the grass isn’t really all that greener over there. YMMV, of course. :)
Signed,
Your friendly anti-suburbanite
September 6th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
I grew up in the city and left shortly after Goode took office. Philly has turned into a total cesspool. It has been at least 5 years since my wife and I have gone into the city for dinner. Unfortunately, I still must enter city limits for employment purposes but I cross into the city with the same trepidation I have when entering Camden.
Lock the doors, roll up the windows and at stop lights, leave enough room between you and the car in front to make a quick escape if need be.