Let’s Unpack This

Why I’m Worried About School Choices For My Unborn Kids

Garfield Hylton
Momentum
6 min readJul 9, 2021

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Sending my kids to a White school may offer a chance for better resources but at what cost?

Children of various ethnicities raise their hand in school. Photo: Getty Images

I spend a lot of time thinking about my unborn children. I wonder about things like what kind of lives they might live and what kind of people they could become. I also wonder whether I’m ready for the responsibility of being a parent. If my dreams are any indication, I’m more than up to the task of finding out. But, there’s one equation I haven’t quite been able to solve for: my kids’ education.

On June 13, Sarunas Jackson, also known as “Dro” on Issa’s Rae’s HBO series “Insecure,” had a message for parents. He tweeted, “Black parents…a rich, all-white school isn’t always a better situation for your Black child.”

I posted his tweet on my Instagram stories and captioned it, “he’s wrong” then followed with “there’s never a situation where surrounding your Black child around nothing but White people is a better situation.”

The benefits of children receiving a great education during their formative years are well documented. Education choices for Black children in America present like a dichotomy of extremes: send them to the Black school that lacks resources, but makes up for it because melanated students will be celebrated…

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Garfield Hylton
Momentum

Medium Creator Fellow. Award-winning TV news journalist. Freelance writer. Mad question asker.