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[platocplx]

Some Excerpts(total read is 11 minutes):

Over the next nine years, I have front row seats to a white exodus from Johns Creek, a suburb located 25 miles outside of Atlanta. The majority of these white families do not relocate closer to Atlanta or to jobs elsewhere in the metro area. They move across a newly expanded four-lane road to the adjacent northern county, Forsyth, a stone’s throw from their former domiciles.
I ask our neighbors, point blank, why they are moving.

Nora’s good at math. There are too many kids here good at math. They’re affecting her self-esteem.

Asian parents take their kids for extra tutoring. It’s not fair for the “regular” kids.

The high school is too competitive. My kids won’t get into a good college because of all of the Asians.

I want my children to grow up in the real world. This is not the real world.

In a decade, the white population at our local elementary school plummets from 397 to 195 white students, or from 55 percent to 23 percent of the total student body. Our children lose some of their dearest friends. Our Parent Teacher Association loses valuable leadership. The local middle and high schools tell a similar story. When the subdivisions in our community first opened, white families were among the first to move in. They are among the first to move out, leaving behind brand new homes they built themselves, the paint barely dry.

Sociologist Samuel H. Kye, the author of Segregation in Suburbia: Ethnoburbs and Spatial Attainment in the Urban Periphery, examined segregation patterns in 150 middle class metropolitan black, Hispanic, and Asian ethnoburbs from 1990 to 2010. By focusing on middle-class, as opposed to lower-class ethnoburbs, he hoped to eliminate poverty as a factor for white flight. In a phone interview, he relays that the relative economic prosperity of an ethnoburb does not diminish white people’s decisions to abandon it. “Across the board, any time you see a significant presence of minority residents, there is a near perfect predictor of exodus of white residents,” he says.

While the term “model minority” substantiates a myth about how whites value Asians, Asians are only “model minorities” when they are small in number with minimal influence on a community. When Asians “set the norms of academic achievement by which whites are evaluated [and] ultimately usurp those previously in place,” once heralded Asian achievements are critiqued with suspicion. In a school district near Princeton, New Jersey, last December, parents claimed that the academic tutoring Asian students received outside of school resulted in the “elementary school curriculum … being sped up to accommodate them.”

These attitudes aren’t antiquated relics; these beliefs are permeating communities even now. In a 2013 study consisting of a series of interviews with both parents and children in Cupertino, one white mother expressed her concerns about the largely Asian high school:

Looking again at a lot of this as a parent, even though I grew up here, we don’t want our kids to go to the high school that we’re zoned for … which is an excellent school. It produces amazing graduates.… All of this stuff over there that’s, again, left out of a whole piece of the development of the child. So we want our kids to go to [another high school], which is right over the bridge here…. But to track our kids for the right schools that aren’t so over the top with kind of just a real risky, negative approach to success — we don’t want our kid to be in that.

Kye suspects the media plays a role in white people’s belief in stereotypes about Asian parenting, particularly its recent fixation on the Asian “Tiger Mom.” “The term ‘competition’ becomes a racial code for the tensions that develop between whites and Asians when Asians succeed,” he says. He speculates that, although the U.S. will become a minority-majority country in a few decades, these trends of segregation and white flight from ethnoburbs will persist for some time. “Segregation has historically been part of the fabric of America,” Kye says.

Historically, residential segregation has occurred within cities with individual racial communities divided by parks, roads, or other landscape markers. This type of intra-city segregation has been decreasing in recent years in favor of a new strain of segregation that occurs outside of city centers: segregation between suburbs.

For several of the largest cities in the U.S., ethnic minorities now make up the majority suburban population. In 1980, 1.2 million Asians, just under 5 million Hispanics and 6 million blacks lived in the suburbs. Today, 8.3 million Asians, 23 million Hispanics, and 16 million blacks live in the suburbs. This trend of increasing diversity is surging through the suburbs of Atlanta as well. Gwinnett and Cobb counties have more racial diversity than most of the City of Atlanta. Johns Creek, in the northeast corner of Fulton County, still has a majority white population of 60 percent, with 23 percent Asians, according to the most recent census in 2010. Twenty-five percent of the population in Johns Creek is foreign-born.

The white parents in Johns Creek, who in the same breath decry the police killings of unarmed African Americans, do not hesitate to tell me they do not want their children measured against Asians during the critical four years of grades that will make up the bulk of college application materials. This white fragility informs their decisions to insulate themselves from the “racial stress” of living next to Asians by moving to a different suburb.

Somehow white parents’ liberal politics and progressivism do not inform them that the decision to relocate to avoid Asians is racism. They’ve defined the term so narrowly, their own individual acts of prejudice don’t meet it.

A lot more i encourage people read this. I know how many of us kind of talk about racism at purely a white and black level, but i found it interesting(no shocked) that no matter the success level of the minority there is a level of racism and bias even with the poorly called "model minority" where many people say how if they can succeed why cant other minorities etc but again this is a great example of it not mattering how high they go. They all face racism.

https://psmag.com/ghosts-of-white-p...om-an-asian-ethnoburb-b550ba986cdb#.y0icoq7uw

 

[Guevara]

It actually kind of makes sense to game the high school system, and with it, college acceptance/scholarship chances. The stakes are just too high.

Better to be the best kid in a terrible average school than an average kid at a great school.

 

[CrocMother]

It actually kind of makes sense to game the high school system, and with it, college acceptance/scholarship chances. The stakes are just too high.

Better to be the best kid in a terrible average school than an average kid at a great school.

This is the sad truth.

 

[ishibear]

Definitely not surprising.

 

[Dimmle]

Nora's obviously not that great at math.

 

[qcf x2]

I'm surprised you find it surprising tbh. If you feel at all that there is a superior race then of course all the other races are inferior/undesirable, it just depends on how you happen to arrange your personal heirarchy and what level of undesirable you're willing to accept before you embarrass yourself in public.

 

[MogCakes]

Ouch, not a flattering look.

 

[richiek]

I want my children to grow up in the real world. This is not the real world.

What the fuck is that supposed mean??

 

[super-famicom]

Well, you should send your children to tutoring too. Don't whine about shit being unfair.

 

[n00bsauce87]

What does that say about the parent?

This also says that white parents inherently believe their kids are not as smart as Asian kids.

Man that has to be quite the infuriourity(sp?) complex if I ever saw it

 

[dramatis]

There was an article from last year that I posted a thread about, which had a line that summed it up pretty nicely:

Put one more way: white people don’t like it when we don’t do well and they don’t like it when we do. But most of all, they don’t like it when they don’t do well.

 

[Zaru]

I'm more curious about whether the asians would flee if blacks/hispanics moved in.

 

[timetokill]

Always comes down to schools, ultimately. If you think moving to a different district means your child will have a better chance in the future, then you're going to do it if you can. Unfortunately this leads to segregation.

 

[NeonBlack]

Complain about Black kids bringing down grades

Complain about Asian kids bringing up grades.

What do you want?!

Asian parents take their kids for extra tutoring. It’s not fair for the “regular” kids.

Asian kids aren't regular kids?

I want my children to grow up in the real world. This is not the real world.

Competition. Not part of the real world.

I'm more curious about whether the asians would flee if blacks/hispanics moved in.

This is the real question.

 

[jerry113]

but think of all the great asian cuisine you're also leaving

 

[Kieli]

I'm more curious about whether the asians would flee if blacks/hispanics moved in.

Asians are racist as hell against blacks. Not sure what their stance is on hispanics, though.

 

[LegendofJoe]

It actually kind of makes sense to game the high school system, and with it, college acceptance/scholarship chances. The stakes are just too high.

Better to be the best kid in a terrible average school than an average kid at a great school.

As someone who was the best in his class in a poor school and barely cracked the top 40% of a great school I can attest to this. That said the first two years of my undergradute studies were a breeze. I'm certain the high school I went to had a lot to do with that, I was well prepared.

 

[voodoojohn]

Can't compete in their home town, can't compete in the world economy.

 

[Mupod]

It actually kind of makes sense to game the high school system, and with it, college acceptance/scholarship chances. The stakes are just too high.

Better to be the best kid in a terrible average school than an average kid at a great school.

I was able to choose my own high school, is that outside the norm these days? But in a way I kinda shot myself in the foot by going to the 'best' one with an awesome technology program. The competition for scholarships was crazy. In the end though getting to take CCNA courses in the early 2000s helped me a lot.

 

[UnemployedVillain]

For any Asians who mistook being "model minorities" with white people accepting them

 

[torre_avenue]

Hey, shoutouts to Cupertino! I went to school there and I can definitely see where the author is coming from when she mentions white flight. I've been trying to read the WSJ article about the town but there seems to be no way to do so without paying.

In relation to the article, I can definitely see where the "reasons" for white flight stem from. Growing up as an Indian-American who went to school there for most of his life, the idea of competition is something that is incredibly real. It doesn't matter how well you think you do because at the end of the day, there's always someone better. That's why Bs don't cut it for our parents; Bs drop you down into 70-80th percentile of the school and that's not the percentile good universities want. Similarly, extra-curriculars mean so much more. You can't just volunteer and call it a night, you have to volunteer, and play piano for 5+ years, and regularly place in the Science & Math Olympiads, and get to the semi-finals of the Intel Science Fair. It's an incredibly competitive atmosphere that really weeds out those who can and can't handle it. And because of it, an average student there would be top 5% elsewhere and yet get into the same colleges as an average student elsewhere. My mom once joked to me that if I wanted to get into a Stanford or a Yale, I shouldn't go to school in Cupertino; instead, I should just transfer out into some regional school in Hawaii or Minnesota, get into the top 1% there and get my access. All these white people fleeing are doing just that, they can't compete so they change the game their kids play.

 

[norm9]

This also says that white parents inherently believe their kids are not as smart as Asian kids.

I think it's the opposite. I think the parents think their kids are smarter but are being cheated because of tutoring and a dose of oriental mysticism.

I'm more curious about whether the asians would flee if blacks/hispanics moved in.

Don't think there's any way to know this since it's the middle class and I'm not sure there are any studies on Asian flight.

 

[Mattlikewhoa]

Ah I haven't heard "model minority" or "one of the good ones" in quite some time.

This is an interesting read so far.

It actually kind of makes sense to game the high school system, and with it, college acceptance/scholarship chances. The stakes are just too high.

Better to be the best kid in a terrible average school than an average kid at a great school.

This is true...

 

[LookAtMeGo]

I think I had the lowest grade average in my entire high school.

 

[kirblar]

Some Excerpts(total read is 11 minutes):

A lot more i encourage people read this. I know how many of us kind of talk about racism at purely a white and black level, but i found it interesting(no shocked) that no matter the success level of the minority there is a level of racism and bias even with the poorly called "model minority" where many people say how if they can succeed why cant other minorities etc but again this is a great example of it not mattering how high they go. They all face racism.

https://psmag.com/ghosts-of-white-p...om-an-asian-ethnoburb-b550ba986cdb#.y0icoq7uw

Thanks for posting this, I read this article and completely forgot to post it up here.

I think a good companion piece to this is this opinion piece on busing recently published by the Brookings Institute - https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brow...inging-back-busing-do-benefits-outweigh-cost/ (they are very liberal, if you're not familiar with DC think tanks.) I'm curious about the note at the end about charter schools and would love to see more data on that. One of the comments in another recent thread about "better schools = gentrification = losing neighborhoods" stuck out to me in that context.

 

[Gallbaro]

Two sides of the same coin. Why are the Asians prioritizing moving into a neighborhood with more Asians?

Spoiler

/s

 

[super-famicom]

I was able to choose my own high school, is that outside the norm these days? But in a way I kinda shot myself in the foot by going to the 'best' one with an awesome technology program. The competition for scholarships was crazy. In the end though getting to take CCNA courses in the early 2000s helped me a lot.

In most places, public high school districts divide the city up so if you live within a high school's predetermined boundaries you have to go to that school. Sometimes there's a lottery system where you can get the chance to transfer to a different high school.

 

[Gordon Shumway]

What the fuck is that supposed mean??

Asians aren't real. Duh!

 

[kazinova]

I just bought a house in the Asian/Indian school system so my kids would be at the best school. I guess I'm anti-racist? Maybe.

I'm probably still racist somehow. That's the only thing I know for sure.

 

[teruterubozu]

Ouch, not a flattering look.

I didn't know it was a fashion contest.

 

[VariantX]

What the fuck is that supposed mean??

In a world where they don't have to compete as hard to get ahead like everyone else.

 

[kswiston]

I was a (white) personal tutor in Markham, Ontario for 2 years. Markham is a city of about 300k, where 3/4s of the population are non-white. 40% of the population is ethnically Chinese. A large chunk of the rest is South Asian. The median household income is around $90k in Markham, 2/3s higher than the Canadian average. A lot of people of all ethnicities are well off.

In my 2 years, I tutored dozens of children of all nationalities. With one exception, white parents only hired a tutor when their kid was flunking or close to it. The majority of my Asian students were already C+ to A students before I came into the picture.

Teachers have to teach 20-40 students at a time. For the most part, parents are incapable of helping their child with math and science homework beyond middle school. A lot of Asian parents take a proactive stance in their child's education because they know what's required to hit their kid's academic potential (the fact that they can push academics too forcefully is another matter). White parents who want their kids to hit the same performance marks need to take the same steps. Moving away to a white town just delays the inevitable to university.

 

[Quixzlizx]

Asians aren't real. Duh!

But anime is real.

 

[Otakumegane]

I went to one of the top highschools public in Michigan. The population of Asian kids was 31% and we dominated the ACT scores and Asians were pretty much the leader of every high-ranked academic club.

Needless to say, white kids sometimes were not pleased, but if you looked at the classes they went to, Asians made up such a majority of the Ap classes that people couldn't really say anything. Faculty loved them for getting the school to such high standards, but there were people struggling trying to blame it on the Asians for making their classes so hard.

 

[Gordon Shumway]

But anime is real.

I don't know what to believe anymore..

 

[cdyhybrid]

That incredible fragility.

Competition not part of the real world? Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

 

[SRG01]

There was an article from last year that I posted a thread about, which had a line that summed it up pretty nicely:

It's sadly true. I got to see both sides of that, having grown up very poor and landing in a semi-prestigious career.

The strange thing about all this is that Asian parents aren't any more driven than other parents to see their children succeed.

 

[LegendofJoe]

Can't compete in their home town, can't compete in the world economy.

This is pretty much how I feel. Eventually, your child will have to enter the real world. It's better if they do it while they're still in high school. It's why I plan to send my children to the best school they can get into/I can afford. I love them more than anything, but that doesn't make them special snowflakes.

Valuing knowledge, empathy, reciprocity, and focused work; and being willing to devote a lot of energy to improving in these areas is what makes people exceptional. The sooner they realize this the better off they'll be. Removing your child from a good school so they can get better grades may be beneficial in the short-term, but it will hurt them in the long-term.

 

[norm9]

Asians are racist as hell against blacks. Not sure what their stance is on hispanics, though.

Yeah man, I hate blacks.

Spoiler

/s

 

[Hasphat'sAnts]

It actually kind of makes sense to game the high school system, and with it, college acceptance/scholarship chances. The stakes are just too high.

Better to be the best kid in a terrible average school than an average kid at a great school.

It might help with admission (debatable) but it certainly doesn't help with getting prepared for actual college level course work.

 

[Guevara]

There are two things specifically I don't really agree with in this article:

1. She keeps pointing out that not all Asian Americans are privileged. That's true, yes I've heard about the Hmong, (at this point, the only time people talk about the Hmong is as the example of non-privileged AAs) but on average AAs are higher earning/better educated than white people. This would be especially true in the wealthy suburbs mentioned, like Cupertino. That has to do with a bunch of factors (selective immigration, educational values) but the outcome is the same. Guess what? The Hmong aren't moving into wealthy suburbs in large numbers.

2. Yes, it's racism. But don't dance around results. If having a large number of AAs causes white students' relative academic rank to plummet, they'd be fools not to leave. No reason to talk in hypotheticals: this is a thing the writer could have measured.

 

[Team Alucard]

Removing your child from a good school so they can get better grades may be beneficial in the short-term, but it will hurt them in the long-term.

That's debatable.

If moving them to a less competitive enviroment means they have a higher chance of getting into an elite university, then it absolutely is better for their long-term career prospects.

The opportunities available to someone at Yale/Harvard/Stanford are absolutely not the same as the opportunities available to the same individual at a public state university.

 

[norm9]

That's debatable.

If moving them to a less competitive enviroment means they have a higher chance of getting into an elite university, then it absolutely is better for their long-term career outlook.

The opportunities available to someone at Yale/Harvard/Stanford are absolutely not the same as the opportunities available to the same individual at a public state university.

Can you still call this white flight then?

 

[Zoe]

It might help with admission (debatable) but it certainly doesn't help with getting prepared for actual college level course work.

It's not debatable if you live somewhere with guaranteed acceptance to the top X%.

 

[Mupod]

In most places, public high school districts divide the city up so if you live within a high school's predetermined boundaries you have to go to that school. Sometimes there's a lottery system where you can get the chance to transfer to a different high school.

I see. I'm from northern ontario and at least when I was a kid you were not restricted in your school choice by anything but busing. I lived in absolute bumfuck so normally I'd only be allowed to choose one school - however, since I got into that technology program (had to get a letter from my principal) I was able to get bused from anywhere. There were only a few kids on my bus until we got to the city so I guess it was hilariously inefficient.

There was a similar program available to drama program students at another school in the city. My brother and sister went to that one, although both changed schools at one point. My youngest sisters went to the 'recommended' school. At one point between the 5 of us, we were going to 4 different high schools.

 

[victreeb3l]

While the term “model minority” substantiates a myth about how whites value Asians, Asians are only “model minorities” when they are small in number with minimal influence on a community. When Asians “set the norms of academic achievement by which whites are evaluated [and] ultimately usurp those previously in place,” once heralded Asian achievements are critiqued with suspicion. In a school district near Princeton, New Jersey, last December, parents claimed that the academic tutoring Asian students received outside of school resulted in the “elementary school curriculum … being sped up to accommodate them.”

Hah.

 

[Hasphat'sAnts]

It's not debatable if you live somewhere with guaranteed acceptance to the top X%.

Not the case in GA as far as I know

 

[Quixzlizx]

I see. I'm from northern ontario and at least when I was a kid you were not restricted in your school choice by anything but busing. I lived in absolute bumfuck so normally I'd only be allowed to choose one school - however, since I got into that technology program (had to get a letter from my principal) I was able to get bused from anywhere. There were only a few kids on my bus until we got to the city so I guess it was hilariously inefficient.

There was a similar program available to drama program students at another school in the city. My brother and sister went to that one, although both changed schools at one point. My youngest sisters went to the 'recommended' school. At one point between the 5 of us, we were going to 4 different high schools.

A significant percentage of the American school system is funded by local property taxes, so there are a lot of people who'd take a dim view of school district shopping, even if you take out any racist/classist angle.

 

[platocplx]

I was a (white) personal tutor in Markham, Ontario for 2 years. Markham is a city of about 300k, where 3/4s of the population are non-white. 40% of the population is ethnically Chinese. A large chunk of the rest is South Asian. The median household income is around $90k in Markham, 2/3s higher than the Canadian average. A lot of people of all ethnicities are well off.

In my 2 years, I tutored dozens of children of all nationalities. With one exception, white parents only hired a tutor when their kid was flunking or close to it. The majority of my Asian students were already C+ to A students before I came into the picture.

Teachers have to teach 20-40 students at a time. For the most part, parents are incapable of helping their child with math and science homework beyond middle school. A lot of Asian parents take a proactive stance in their child's education because they know what's required to hit their kid's academic potential (the fact that they can push academics too forcefully is another matter). White parents who want their kids to hit the same performance marks need to take the same steps. Moving away to a white town just delays the inevitable to university.

I love this observation it totally makes sense because with one on one time it helps a lot for their kids. That proactiveness is probally the single most largest piece to their success.

 

[BronsonLee]

Johns Creek?

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