The thought I shouldn't say aloud
It turns out that diversity is important at elite universities
Over breakfast, I made the mistake that I have been trying to avoid for several weeks now. A fragment of an unsayable thought has escaped my lips. Ever since I first thought it, it has been a bit of a chore to choke it down whenever it resurfaced, and this time I didn’t manage to cut it all off. I made the second mistake of saying “I shouldn’t say this out loud, especially where I might be a bad influence” as my 4 year old scurried around beneath the breakfast table, which prompted some quick questions.
To put it into context, we are at an elite university. It’s not so far to the north-east that I, a Blocked and Reported style liberal, would assume that I’m the most conservative person in the room, and this impression is increased by the religious affiliations of several families, and overwhelming wealth at everyone’s disposal. Our kids attend the university daycare. We attend various birthday parties with their classmates, and various work gatherings with work-mates, so we’ve seen plenty of people’s private homes. At the birthday parties (and even just playing at random local parks) it seems like I am the only one who likes to play at all, and almost all adults seem to like to stand around either talking, looking at their phones, watch their kids like hawks, or actively impede play. I am also pretty terrible with names and faces, and also am not trying very hard, so I can’t really match parents to kids, keep the kids’ names matched to their faces very well, and have pretty much never bothered to ask any of the adults their names. We are also about a week or two after “the end of affirmative action” in the SFFA v. UNC and SFFA v. Harvard cases.
Having gone over the background, here is the unsayable thought, though I suppose it’s a bit of a bland one:
I guess diversity really is important, because I have a hard time telling one rich white person from another.
It’s a bit rude, but it really is a problem for me. Two of the girls in my oldest’s class are basically twins, and their parents are some variation of generic “rich, with a big house”. It might even be three of them, for all I know.
My kid’s the tan one with curly hair and a missing tooth. So easy. There’s three boys that I know, one with a bowl cut and friendly smile, one with shorter hair and a devious smile, and one with red hair. But girls all have long hair, and when they’re all blonde with blue eyes and frilly dresses, it’s kind of hard to figure them out.
And for the babies? There’s us, the darker one with big SHOCKED eyes, and then a bunch of various blonde haired blue eyed ones. Forget it, I’m not even going to bother.
And the parents are just as bad. Being university-affiliated, I thought I was just going to go by “the rich ones are professors, and the poor ones are grad students” but it turns out that the only poor one is me! And I’m not even close to poor! Everyone’s got a $600,000 house or bigger on the medium-rich side of town.
When they stand around talking at birthday parties, I am somewhat fascinated by their discussions about the 3 year waitlist to this private school and the $8000 application fee for for that country club (as opposed to the 2 year waitlist for that private school, etc), but besides my amusement at their more-or-less unanimous decision to redshirt their kids (boys and girls, sorry Richard Reeves), it all kind of blends together into “useless fictional knowledge”. I might as well be hearing about the finest schools in Cyrodiil. Whose kids are going to be going to Strixhaven, and whose are slated for Hogwarts? Couldn’t tell you, but they certainly have spent dozens of hours and generated some spreadsheets to compare and contrast the two.
In contrast, everyone can sort of immediately identify me. I’m the non-white one who doesn’t talk much and likes to run around and play and get wet (I was one of two people that actually wore a swimsuit to the water park. I’m not really sure why they bothered to have a birthday party at a water park, paying for everyone’s tickets, and then nobody else even plays in the water. I must be the poor person in the room to even think of that as a waste of money.). I’m the only one who wear a mask to school anymore (though they could just use skin-color to identify me without the mask). I own like one pair of jeans, and it has a patch on it, and nobody in 2023 patches their clothes except me. My kid is also non-white, so it’s also easy to match us to each other (though I don’t think he plays differently than the other kids in much of a noticeable way). It’s so easy! Every other person has to keep track of n-1 people, except me. It’s not fair!
And that’s why, if I was in charge of college admissions/hiring decisions, I would have a diversity mandate. Until diversity improves, no more rich white people that stand around talking about country clubs and private schools. You can either run around with your kids, promise to wear the same color outfit every day (and dress your kids in a minor variation of that color), or be non-white. You may also dye your entire family’s hair. I will settle for nametags or funny hats.
Here’s an old white guy who agrees with you pretty much 100%. Not poor but non-rich, spent my (overlong) teaching career in inner-city schools, not as a white savior but b/c any warm body will do there and I needed a job. Discovered along the way that measures of status derived from sterling credentials aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. Wear your bathing suit w/pride!