New Town

I agree that if you are not religious, joining an AA church doesn't make a lot of sense for you! It may take some time, but start looking for other ways to build connections. Ask other parents. Take a look at programs for kids in your city. Start making phone calls. Here are some ideas that we have come up with - some are things we plan to tap into in the future because our son is only 3. We live in an area of our city that is racially mixed. We go to parks in areas where there are more families of color. We look for AA run businesses and professionals. For example, there is an AA bookstore in our city that we go to. Our son has his hair cut at an AA barber shop. Our son's dentist and pediatrician are both AA, as is our accountant and my partner's doctor. I am taking African American studies classes at a community college. This has been wonderful, because I love being in school, I'm learning some really important information that I can share with my son, and I've gotten to know several people in my classes. It's a real mix of ages - so a lot of the people in my classes are my age or older. (I thought I'd be in class with a lot of kids right out of high school!) The Parks and Rec department in my city offers a lot of classes and sports programs that attract a racially and economically diverse population of kids - a friend with a son who is now a young adult said that her son participated in a lot of the programs through high school and in many of them, AA kids were in the majority. Our city basically has 2 separate little league programs - one majority white and the other majority AA. If our son ends up playing baseball, we would strongly favor the one that has mostly AA kids. There is a special summer academic program and another summer sports program in my city that is run by 2 different groups of African American men specifically to mentor and support African American boys. We have done research to find which schools in our city are both high performing and have a diverse student population. Also, you might take a look at Pact. They are an organization that does a lot to support TRA families. They have a program called Building Community Across Cultures that is designed to help TRA parents figure out exactly this question. The website is [url=http://www.pactadopt.org]Welcome to Pact, An Adoption Alliance[/url]. I hope this gives you some ideas!

Wow! Thank you SO much for your response!! This is really helpful. My husband and I went through the list that you offered and are definitely going to start doing some of these things. You're the best!!! :thanks:

I'm glad it was helpful! Good luck with everything. :)

That IS a really good list! I think using black professionals really makes a huge difference so don't overlook that one. Not only does your child grow up thinking its normal for people to have black doctors, lawyers etc. . . but I notice that the waiting rooms of black doctors tend to have more black people in them. When you vacation, consider vacationing in areas that attract blacks as opposed to lily white areas. We just got back from San Diego and instead of staying that holiday in express in the gas lamp district, we stayed at the same hotel in Oceanside. It was a completely different beach experience. Now that I have experienced that, I will make an effort to find the "black areas" in other cities when we vacation. ANd a hard lesson I learned, diverse schools are good, but a diverse teaching staff is more important as long as there is some diversity in the student body. Magnet schools, if your area has them, tend to be racially diverse.

I think I understand your frustration. It may be because your town is not very integrated. We have 3 aa children and we moved to a very segregated area to be closer to family. It's been a real eye-opener for me. It's tough to meet people and find the skin/hair products you need and such in segregated places. Our city is the 6th most segregated in the country. (In case anyone was wondering, Milwaukee is the #1 most segregated city in the US.) Some of the things on oak's (very helpful) list sometimes aren't possible because of it. Here the traditionally aa parts of town are not safe and I've been asking myself "just where is the black middle class around here?". Here's some things you could do: 1. Go to museums, especially children's museums. I have met nice people in the children's museum and at our science and art museum also. 2. Go to libraries and attend storytimes and other special programs that they may have. 3. Go to programs/events at the university. 4. Go to live shows. We went to "Barney live" with our kids and I met a very nice aa lady and her 3 year old daughter. Also plays, philharmonic and dance performances would be nice although in my case with the 3 toddlers I can't do that anymore!! 5. Look up websites for black media like radio stations and magazines in your area to find resources and upcoming events. Also the universities/colleges might have clubs for black students which might put out a newspaper or have shows and events. 6. See if there are any aa people you might like to get to know better at the workplace. I had many colleagues in my old town but now since I am not working that's not an option for me, but maybe it is for you. 7. Are there any art schools near you? Here there is one in the city that I actually went to in 2nd and 3rd grades which was very diverse in it's student population, and I may take my kids there as well if the area it is in is still safe, although I don't think it is anymore. 8. If you had the time and interest you could try a little volunteering at a hospital. Hospitals usually have a somewhat diverse staff who you would likely come into contact with. You would be in a situation where you would interact/talk with this staff regularly. Also doing volunteering for some kind of charity work could be an option where you could meet people doing the same kind of charity work. I know that isn't everyone's thing... just thought I'd throw it out there. :) I have met some nice people at playgrounds, splash pads and mall play areas but that doesn't really lend itself to a longer term friendship or playdates or anything. We also took our children to classes at the Y hoping to get them exposed to other kids in general and to see other aa children. Unfortunately there were no other black kids there at all. It's hard to meet people you don't know. If I see someone I want to talk to with a child I have on occasion started talking to them by commenting on how cute/nice/smart their kid is or saying something complimetary about the hairstyle. My kids tend to be with me and so nobody has mistaken me for a serial killer or anything yet. In terms of schools, I have no advice for you. Our A rated public school which is right around the corner has an aa population of less than 1%. I'm still not sure if I want my kids to go there or to a private school in the area. Most of the good private schools here are not much better in terms of diversity. Schools with more diversity are generally horrible around here. Some would probably advise me to try to move to a less segregated area, but in our case we feel so strongly about the family environment that we are going to try to make it work. I hope things work out well for you in your new town. I'll be very interested to see what others have to say on this topic. :)