This month my husband and I are taking a class titled Hard Conversations: An Introduction to Racism. This week the lessons are designed to lay the groundwork of fostering dialogue, not debate. We are digging in deep to understand structural and systemic racism. I’ve had two major take-aways so far. #1: Based on videos from Brené Brown and Thich Nhat Hanh, I’ve been chewing on the idea of compassionate listening and how it’s related to empathy. Too often we are worried about solving the problem or sharing our own opinion on a topic. Instead we need to do the hard work of really listening and discovering what unmet needs are being described. Sympathy uses the phrasing, “Well, at least….”, but empathy says, “I don’t know what to say, but thank you for sharing this with me.” That is where I want my students to be before they spout off opinions. This is where we all should be as we examine issues of social justice in our country. #2: After listening to the raw story of a black woman describing the racism she had experienced since a young age, I was struck by her description of the constant fear she lives with because of systemic racism. She walks in stores with her hands in her pockets so she won’t be seen as a shoplifter; she is scared to drive in her car for fear of a run-in with police. And then she addressed white folks like myself who are scared to have conversations about race. I am scared to engage in dialogue, while she is afraid to walk down the street. My privilege runs deep, so I must learn to face the fear and use my voice. I’ve been ruminating on these ideas, and then on Thursday night I received an email from our school’s athletic director relaying a message from the Iowa High School Athletic Association. Attached was a flyer about flag etiquette along with the following message: “The IHSAA would never infringe on one's right to freedom of expression, but I did want to call your attention to a flag etiquette piece created by the IHSAA, IGHSAU, IHSMA & IHSAA in 2006.” Did you catch that BUT? You have freedom of expression, but this is how we want you to express it. How quickly we have forgotten that we live in a country founded on protest. What do you think the Boston Tea Party was? (Spoiler alert: It wasn’t a bunch of guys sitting around in fancy hats and wigs drinking tea.) The Underground Railroad wasn’t a ride at an amusement park. And Rosa Parks had truly had enough. It was protest. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., wrote in his letter from the Birmingham Jail, “We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.” And now our country is up in arms because of the way some folks are choosing to protest. We have hard conversations at our house about race and privilege; my boys know the stories of Freddie Grey and Tamir Rice. Now we will add Terence Crutcher to the list. They know they are not to be seen outside of our home playing with guns. They know that they will not be afforded the same privilege that their white peers will receive. They know the dangers of hoodies and listening to music and driving and walking in the wrong neighborhood. They’ve heard us talk about the unfair sentencing of the Stanford rapist, and they recognize the injustice when privilege is at play. You know what else my young sons understand? They understand that being against police brutality doesn’t mean they are against police. They understand that saying Black Lives Matter doesn’t mean that other lives don’t matter. They understand that you can be at once patriotic and still want better for your country. They are 11 and 12, and they get that. So many others do not. They flood my newsfeed with their poison, their poison that feels like a direct attack on my precious family. Dang, my fear can be palpable. If I had been at the game last Friday during the National Anthem, I don’t know what I would have done. But I do know this. For now I can use my words. This, right now, is how I kneel. Protest is powerful and necessary where change is needed. Freedom of expression comes with no “buts.” More of my white friends need to be in on these conversations. As Dr. King wrote, again behind the bars of the Birmingham Jail, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
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Well, I did it. I was scared, and I couldn't predict the outcome. But still, I did it. Last Friday in my American Novel class, we talked about racism. But we didn't just talk about racism in Tom Robinson's day because we had just finished reading To Kill a Mockingbird. Instead I took my class, part of a student body that is 98% white, out of their comfort zone. This conversation followed on the heels of my introduction to this article, explaining the strong need for anti-racist curriculum in our schools. I knew that if I wanted to be an ally, I needed to use my position as a teacher, especially in a context as rich as Mockingbird. To be honest, I've been scared. This is a hot-button issue for me, one that hits close to home. I didn't know how I would react when brought face-to-face with the biases I knew many of my students cling to. Because I wanted the conversation to be perfect, my answers to be articulate, my fear caused me to avoid the issue. I was weak. Sure, we had short conversations in passing and I passed along articles to students in emails and as comments in journals, but I had never centered an entire lesson about the ways that racism exists today. That changed last week, though, at the prompting of my principal. He observed me lead a class fish bowl discussion towards the end of our reading of Lee's classic novel, and in his observation notes, he wrote, "This novel gives great opportunities to connect with current thoughts/situations dealing with discrimination and prejudice. What have you done to discuss these connections?" The answer was nothing, and I felt deeply convicted. I tucked away my fear and dug right in the next class period. First, we read this article that introduced the students to the concept of racial bias and microaggressions. We needed to read the examples and learn the lexicon that could help us in our Socratic Seminar for the day. I gave students time to read and process. Next, I introduced the question: How is racism today different from racism during To Kill a Mockingbird? This group can sometimes be reticent during discussion, but on this day they opened up. From the inside of our little homogeneous bubble, many of them admitted to being surprised by the statistics about job searches and housing and poverty. "I had no idea that you would have a harder time just getting a job interview if you were black," one usually shy girl announced. Another boy astutely observed, "I think people like to read books like Mockingbird because then they can say, 'Well, at least racism isn't as bad as it was then.'" Their eyes were being opened. Finally, I zeroed in on our own microcosm. "How do you see this play out in our school?" I asked. I asked knowing that for the past several years working in a school with very few minority students, I have watched the "token" black or Hispanic student be made into a stereotype. I watched as the lone Asian student was expected to always do well in math and science and was teased mercilessly if he didn't know an answer. I stood witness as the lone Hispanic boy laughed unconvincingly as other students joked with him about stealing cars and crossing the border. I was a bystander as a biracial student begrudgingly accepted a nickname that focused on her hair, an aspect that made her "other." Last week I watched as another black student half-heartedly laughed along as a classmate proclaimed in the hall, "Oh, it's just because you're black." One young man in our discussion that day bravely pointed out that the students laugh to minimize differences, that in a school like ours, we try to make racial differences a big joke. I prodded them. "What do we do in moments like these? What if the minority student is laughing along? Is the joke acceptable then? Why are we comfortable being bystanders?" Students told of a jazz band competition where a clinician used the derogatory term "retard." These students were shocked, but of course the man was in position of authority over them, so they remained silent. I don't judge these students for their silence. I've obviously been silent, too. But the question remains: How can we ALL do better? This time we had the conversation. We scratched the painful surface and sat in our discomfort. It wasn't a perfect conversation, and I was frustrated at some of their answers and preconceived notions. And like many conversations like this, we presented more questions and provided few answers, but still we talked. Even now the topic settles here in my classroom, like a dust we can't escape, one we shouldn't escape. Studies show that children as young as four are noticing and sorting according to differences. Our seemingly innocuous "colorblind" approach is clearly not working, especially in places like my current school where we have few minority students. As a parent and an educator and a human, I implore my fellow parents, teachers, and humans: We must have these conversations. We must talk to our young people about race. Our country's problems will not go away with silence. Decades of proof stand in testimony to that. It might not be perfect, and it might even be scary. We might not get the results we want. But we need to open the dialogue. Let's start today. |
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September 2020
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