One member recently described Chapel Hill Homeschoolers as a modern KKK group. She said what makes it modern is that they will allow some acceptance if the child is an interracial child as long as they have at least one white parent, but otherwise, there is a steady exclusion of some members who are colored. This typically occurs until the colored family feels so uncomfortable or unwelcome that they leave the organization or limit their participation. While the organization doesn't outright preach hate, racial segregation is present and active in practice. Even checking out Chapel Hill Homeschoolers Association membership numbers and the percentage of fully minority families, it was looking like they are an intentionally racist exclusionary group.
Over the years, my husband and I began to hear the playground conversations on the harsh nature of Chapel Hill Homeschoolers Association from its own members. These were members who did not support the exclusion but were afraid to speak up. The exclusion is not just limited to race, while there was one prominent lesbian couple that was accepted because of the immense effort they put into helping the community, the vast majority would leave Chapel Hill Homeschoolers after being treated unkindly or completely ignored.
When our family decided to homeschool our boys, we wanted a diverse environment for socialization but when we looked around the Chapel Hill Homeschoolers it was a sea of lily white kids and parents. The few multi-racial kids had at least one white parent or were adopted by white parents. When asked where the ethnic members were, long standing Chapel Hill Homeschool Association members often responded basically that the blacks had their own group. We heard multiple comments like this in our time with the Chapel Hill Homeschoolers Association.
The history of Chapel Hill Homeschoolers is a sad one of modern segregation and pretense. Chapel Hill Homeschoolers at one time did not even make much of an effort to keep interracial children in the group and at one point there was an actual split between Chapel Hill Homeschoolers and a new organization called Homeschoolers of Color.
One Mom decided she would form Homeschoolers of Color to help provide cultural diversity and acceptance for her adopted minority kids. The problem is that Mom went from Chapel Hill Homeschoolers who basically created an environment of No Blacks and No Colored Allowed to creating a colored group with equally harmful moto No Whites Allowed while both groups accepted the kids if they were interracial - each of these grouops discouraged membership if anyone was fully of the wrong color. I am extremely sad about Homeschoolers of Color because I dont understand how this Mom could possibly see intentional segregation or exclusion of any race as positive.
While Cultural Enrichment is wonderful and needed in the minority community, Homeschoolers of Color was created with the intention to exclude whites which only compounded the problem that Chapel Hill Homeschoolers had already created in excluding colored families; why does either group feel the need to completely segregate?
Chapel Hill Homeschoolers has a long history and reputation of intimidation and alienation. The difficult part with Chapel Hill Homeschooler is no law is being directly broken. The colored, minority and ethnic families were not excluded from joining (so no laws were broken), the families were just treated in such a way that eventually they felt so unwelcome that they left.
Through the years, many people have asked about integrating cultural activities or creating guidelines to make EVERYONE feel welcome regardless of race but it is always met with resistance or attacking the person who suggested it. While the vast majority of parents are good people, it does not excuse the pain created by a segregated community or what winds up teaching children to segregate based on color.
When the few interracial kids that are in Chapel Hill Homeschoolers are actually asking, why arent there more kids that look like me? Chapel Hill Homeschoolers should have started looking into the answer and finding a solution rather than continue to allow possible racists to lead behaviors which caused segregation or allowing conduct that continued to separate the racial groups. One should think carefully and perhaps think twice before supporting or joining this group.
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