I’m too cheap for Publix lol. But we’re so close to lidl, Kroger and food lion. It’s great!

We live in Church Hill North and like it a lot. We have a large backyard and our house was really affordable. There’s definitely crime, but honestly, just stay to yourself in the obviously bad areas and you’ll be fine.

The market at 25th gets mixed reviews. Personally, I love it. It’s not the best grocery store in the world, but I think it’s better than VCU Kroger. Produce is not the best, but still better than Lidl or Aldi. We’re really conveniently located to White Oak and they have all the other options there (within 10 min). I like that if I need one onion, I can get it and be home within 5 min. The staff is really friendly.

I walk all over during the day (except near ocean grocery) and feel very safe.

That’s fair and a more reasonable take than I normally see.

I agree! I’m not saying that charter schools are actually better, just that there seems to be some idea that the only people who are for them are white nationalist republicans or “stupid” poor/black/brown people who’ve been conned into thinking that they’re a good idea. There are lots of black/brown/poor people who are also in support of charter schools because they feel (correctly) that they have been let down by the public school system.

I feel like “public school above all else” people tend to have a narrative that removes agency from the people they say they want to help. Can’t you see that in a scenario where you have two bad choices, it might be reasonable to try the option that hasn’t totally failed you yet? again, not saying that charter schools are actually better, but please acknowledge, at least, the century of inequality that might lead to a distaste for public school.

Re: your edit, I did start my rant with a reference to the class issues. However, in the US in general and in Richmond specifically, race and class are inextricably linked. It is naive at best to think otherwise. I am sorry for the rant, but this issue always gets highjacked by middle class white people who talk a big game and then move out to the suburbs when their own kid has to go to rps. Poor people (which again, in Richmond city generally also means pocs) have no such escape route.

Religious people can just homeschool their kids. It’s very easy in VA. They have no need for charter schools. What a strange take.

VA has very few charter schools, but coming from a place with many more of them, most charter school parents i knew lived in an area where racism and classism have so thoroughly ruined the district, they feel as though they have no other choice. They can’t afford private schools and they are unwilling to send their sons and daughters to schools where kids are stabbed or molested by their classmates (which are actual things that happened to actual people I grew up with).

Please consider that there are real people (poor, black and brown people) who also think that the school system is horribly inadequate and want the opportunity to get their child out of the system. Not everything boils down to “white Christian nationalists.” Black parents want good schools too, and the system has failed us over and over and over (and over, and over again).