Diversity is when the white kids get to go to school with just the “right” proportion of non-white kids, while integration is when the schools all reflect the broader population. In a district that’s about 6/7ths non-white, if all the white kids go school that is half non-white, they will experience diversity, while, the system will still be highly segregated. Five out of six non-white kids will go to a school that is exclusively students of color.

So, when the conversation should be about integration, but somehow ends up being about diversity, notice that, and know that the conversation just became about the experience of the white kids, not the students of color.

This was just one of many thoughts I had reading this fantastic piece  by Nikole Hannah-Jones, about two Brooklyn schools, as a microcosm of the whole school system.  Read the whole thing, you won’t regret it.