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Originally Posted by ferrets_bueller
It is literally...not figuratively, literally...child abuse to send your children to the DC public schools. This isn't really open to discussion. The schools are wretched, with no improvement in sight.
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I bet this is true. And it probably has nothing to do with the fact that white people and their money fled cities for the suburbs where they could erect huge private schools or, worse, public schools in carefully drawn districts at which poor and diverse students have no shot to attend.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ferrets_bueller
Our extended neighborhood includes Route 1, which is full of section 8 housing with people who got to America Tuesday. Their children attend the local high school with kids who live in riverfront mansions. There were students from 40 nations when my son went there; the school put a flag of origin in the lobby for each nation that had sent them a student. My son was a remarkable athlete. He played soccer with Africans and South Americans, basketball with African Americans, and swam with the white yuppies. One of those yuppies went to Stanford, the Austrian Olympic Team, and held a world record in the backstroke. So, yes, there was an Austrian flag.
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Great! This is the exception.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ferrets_bueller
Looking down on strip mall restaurants is a snob's mistake, at least in my neck of the woods.
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I look down on no good food. I look down on strip malls, which are a fucking blight.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ferrets_bueller
To sum up: There is no "right answer" to which is better, urban or suburban.
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I know I made it sound like a competition. But I don't really care which is better or worse. It's completely subjective, based on what you like and, most likely, where you grew up. I'm a city kid. I don't understand wanting to live in isolation (although, some of the best isolation is in city anonymity). I would never want to live in a place where there is a strictly homogenous experience. I think country clubs are fucking stupid, exclusionary, and full of assholes who spend all their time jerking each other off (I've been to quite a few for golf--and I love when they say, "Hey! Why don't you join? We have so few black members." Really? I wonder why?).
The problem I have with the suburbs is that it is self-segregation performed by people who tell themselves it's about the schools or the space or the yard or the safety. And self-segregation by scared white people is the biggest problem this country has, in my opinion.
Sorry. I tried to be reasonable. I guess it's not possible.
TM
