majority thinking

I was at a birthday party for one of Georgie's classmates yesterday afternoon. It was very nice. The children were clearly enjoying themselves. There's was even a lady doing face painting just for the occasion. I wished I could join the line and have my face painted the colour of Spring. The cup-cakes were lovely. I tried one before the children ate them all!

The non-whites were my daughter, myself, and a Japanese girl and her dad. We were all middle-class, comfortable in life, good jobs, good income, nice houses, nice cars.

I couldn't help overhearing a conversation between an Italian colleague of mine and one of her American friends. They were talking about diversity. It prickled my ears. The American said that he was "so surprised" that there weren't any black children at the European schools in Brussels. The Italian said that she was not really so worried about it "because being in Brussels made you aware of all kinds of people, just by walking in the street". To which the American retorted, "sure, but how many of your children's friends are black? How many of our friends are black?". To which the Italian responded, "but surely, you don't think that adding 10 blacks to a European school would solve the problem, do you?". To which the American said, "yeah, but shouldn't we put our children in Belgian schools instead, there they would meet so many more kids from a diverse background, and after all we are in Belgium". The Italian then said, "well yes, that's true, but there are other considerations to take into account, I'm not going to choose my school just because it is diverse, there's the language and the academics too".

I suppose my Italian colleague has a point, we are not going to choose schools just because they are diverse in terms of backgrounds and colours, but surely that should also play a role, at least to make the school authorities aware that this is an issue and that it deserves to be looked into.

I joined the conversation at some stage and explained that we were planning to enroll Georgie in the European school of Woluwe, but that we were concerned about it being too white. I explained how important it is for us to feel validated by others who look just like us. And this applied to a variety of identity categories. Women enjoy the presence of other women, and so do men, people of a certain nationality enjoy the presence of other nationals from the same country, and this feeling of "community" applied also to aspects such as skin colour and sexual orientation. Becoming ourselves implies finding in others a mirror where we can also see reflected our experiences and our individuality, even though this sounds like a paradox. What surprised me was that she was surprised by this, that it had never occurred to her because in her world she almost never has to think of herself as different, as the odd one out. She takes it for granted.

One example made her realise what I meant better than anything else. I told her, take your hair for example. You are surrounded here by women whose hair is very similar to yours. When you get together you can exchange tips on what shampoos to use, what kind of care to have, etc. My daughter's hair is different from everyone's in this room. She wouldn't be able to join a conversation like that, because the products that work for your hair for instance wouldn't be the rights ones for her hair. Do you get it? Silence and large eyes. I think she got it!

I also explained to her that living in a diverse town doesn't mean that you are significantly engaged with diverse environments. Seeing lots of non-white people in the street, doesn't mean that you know who they are, how they feel, that you can relate to them and see them as equal. People are not meant to serve as decoration, they are for interaction. Somehow, I feel I didn't make a friend...