It is two years later and I am meeting him for lunch. He pulls up in a Honda that he paid for with his own hard-earned money. He is earning more scholarships and grants toward school than when he started; his position as an RA offered to him a dorm of his own, a home, which is one of the only times I have known him to have a stable living situation.
It is five days later and I wake up to the news that Philando Castile has been killed by a St. Anthony police officer. The shooting was in my school district, near an intersection where I see many students as I drive home from work: 0.8 miles from one of our elementary schools and 2.6 miles from the high school where I teach. Philando was a father who was killed in front of his girlfriend and four-year-old daughter. He worked at a St. Paul school where he was respected. I look at his picture and I see a warm smile that I hope would work in a school. I bet he wasn't afraid to slide a kid a cookie when he was having a hard day.
My head drops into my hands. I think back to Saturday when my former student picked me up in the car he is so proud to own. This shooting could have so easily been him. Then I begin thinking of my other black students. The list is long. You see, I'm a teacher who works primarily with students of color. Some trimesters, my classes are 70%+ students of color and I wonder how safe they feel driving around or walking around our school district. I wonder how many times a month, a week, a day, they have to think about this. Do they grip someone they love in a tight hug before they leave home? Do they wonder if they will make it home that day?
I'm not trying to be histrionic here. The longer I teach at my school, the more I learn about the covert prejudices, biases, and racism that exists in our world and the more I worry for my students. They are only seen as innocent kids for so long and sometimes by the time I meet them, it has been a long time since they were ever perceived as innocent or good. These students are people that I care a lot about and I want you to listen closely as I tell you that it is hard to be black in America for a lot of complex reasons that don't always make sense to you or me. But I hope we're both willing to listen.
Let me tell you a few stories.
This fall I had a student who was sitting in his neighborhood park completing a nature assignment for our Romanticism unit and he was questioned by a police officer. This happened in his neighborhood, when he was just sitting on a bench. His sophomore year he used to hang out in my classroom in the mornings with a couple of friends. At one point, I introduced him to some Boy Meets World or Saved By the Bell and that's all they wanted to do in the mornings before school. Story; counter-story.
At the NFL's national speech tournament this past June, I heard coaches complain about students of color getting to the final round because they were playing the ethnic card or the race card or the immigrant card and they can't compete against that because they only have white students.** Don't believe me? One of the finalists addressed this issue before his performance and it gave me goosebumps.
At the NFL's national speech tournament this past June, I heard coaches complain about students of color getting to the final round because they were playing the ethnic card or the race card or the immigrant card and they can't compete against that because they only have white students.** Don't believe me? One of the finalists addressed this issue before his performance and it gave me goosebumps.
"When doing dramatic interpretation, speechanddebate.org states that students should select pieces of series social subject matter appropriate for their gender, age, or race. In 1998, Time Magazine placed the autobiography of Malcolm X as one of the top 10 nonfictional books of its time. I have competed in over 20 tournaments this year, performed over 100 times, and received over 1,000 ballots. Yet one thing remain prevalent: many judges have told me this year that they would not like to see another black kid do another black piece about another black experience. And well for them, here is another black kid doing another black piece about the black experience."
5 out of the 7 students I coach for speech are students of color. If they want to tell a story that resonates with them, that matters that this story is being told but not listened to, then they need to tell that story. My speech students are smart, caring individuals and they go about their speeches thoughtfully. I hope that we can do the same as their audience. This isn't about some unfair advantage. It's about the unheard being listened to.
Let me tell you a real, personal, non-sugar-coated story about how I am not so very great. Lest you have gotten this far and thought otherwise.
Ready? Okay.
After college, I lived in Minneapolis for several years. For about a year and a half, I lived just south of downtown in the Whittier neighborhood. Because we had a Fishes & Loaves program in the school behind our apartment complex, there were often quite a few people who were homeless around, especially after work. Many of whom were African-American. I was taking a SEED class at the time -- an equity-based seminar to help talk about some of our hidden biases and how those things come out in our classroom and our community. I began to be aware of how uncomfortable I would be walking around my neighborhood. I didn't always feel safe even though I was rarely accosted and I didn't have a good answer for why I felt uncomfortable. I mean, I was a young woman living in the city, so I knew I needed to be aware of my surroundings, but this wasn't that. I didn't know what to do, so I was uncomfortable for a while. Which, let me tell you, is not very pleasant. But I was willing to sit in that discomfort because I knew that something needed to change and ignoring it wasn't going to accomplish anything.
As we dug deeper into biases and assumptions in my SEED class, I realized that I was uncomfortable because of the associations I was unconsciously making about these African-Americans who were homeless with stereotypes or assumptions I had. I mean, I'm a teacher who works mostly with students of color, right? I should not be worried when there are more black people around my block. And yet, there I was, like a young girl fresh from her small, not-diverse town looking wide-eyed at her neighborhood. Again, not pleasant to see yourself in a different light.
Do you know what I did? I started looking people in the eye as I walked around. Then I started to wonder what they would have been like in my 9th grade class or my 11th grade class. I wondered when people stopped seeing or knowing them as that goofy kid who always took the window seat or the quiet kid who drew a lot or the star athlete (or the *not* so star athlete) and they instead became someone that others avoided looking at. My roommate and I also volunteered at the Fishes and Loaves meal. Did I solve systemic racism or homelessness or all of my internalized biases? Nope. But it did help me see handfuls of people in my neighborhood as humans who had a story, who had a teacher who probably adored them. And that, my friends, made a difference in how I lived in my neighborhood.
I'm not trying to tell you that these experiences are the only black experiences. I am hoping that you hear stories of these students, stories from your neighbors, coworkers, friends, or even people you pass on the street, and you listen. Don't take their story as the experience, but don't count it out as an exception, either. Understand that these are stories that people have lived through that make them feel less like a human and that's not okay.
I don't really have any answers for you. I have a lot of grief about Philando Castile's death so close to home and Alton Sterling's death and I've made this post a lot about the stories I have heard as a white person who barely -- barely -- has her toe in the world that a person of color lives in. Maybe that's helpful because you're also a white person who has no idea what to do with all of this grief that swirls in your heart. Maybe it's not helpful and you want to have a conversation. Please do.
Here are some other stories to listen to:
1) "Advice for White Folks in the Wake of a Police Murder of a Black Person" by Justin Cohen.
2) "Adrenaline Rush" by Rudy Francisco.
"Being black in American is one of the most extreme sports in America.
We don't need to invent new ways to risk our lives. The old ones have been working for decades."
4) "In Case of an Emergency: a Letter to my Nephew" by Joshua Bennet
5) "How to Raise a Black Son in America" by Clint Smith - "I want to live in a world where my son is not presumed guilty the moment he is born. Where the toy in his hand isn't mistaken for anything other than toy."
6) "The Hill" by Joseph Capehart
7) "The Danger of Silence" by Clint Smith
8) Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Maybe you're ready to DO something. What can you do?
1) Learn about implicit bias and confront your own. Blind Spot by Mahzarin R. Banaji and Anthony Greenwald is a decent place to start. We can't take down entire, historical systems, but we can change how we see the world and that's an important place to start.
2) Get involved. The Twin Cities, according to statistics, is at least 26% people of color and that diversity is rapidly growing, especially in the suburbs. Since 1979, nearly 100,000 refugees have resettled in MN (2,300+ in the last year). If you live in a predominantly white neighborhood, what are your options? Volunteer at KOM. Go a cultural fair. Shop on Franklin Ave or University Ave or Lake Street. Volunteer at a school. Watch a free movie in a park you wouldn't normally go to. Participate in National Night Out. Go the the history museum and check out the "Beyond Bollywood" exhibit. I think it is through being uncomfortable that we are able to grow. Try something new.
3) Look someone in the eye and acknowledge that they exist. Say hi. Smile. Wave awkwardly. I think we would all do a lot better if we felt like our existence mattered.
4) Are these particular issues with police bothering you? Join a protest. Write or call in. Let's get better training for officers so that their gut level reactions aren't to perceive a black person as more dangerous simply because their skin is dark.
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Note: My title comes from the Dr. Martin Luther King, JR quote, "In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends". Clint Smith uses it to open his Ted Talk "The Danger of Silence."
**I just wanted to note that I heard this from many places. I was able to have some cool, constructive conversations with some very thoughtful, aware coaches, but some people were just frustrated.
