It is entirely in my nature to respond as an educator on almost any topic, but the issues of race, ethnicity and culture continue to come up and I swear, I’m not doing all that much to further the issue due to force. These humble writings and thoughts are mine and this little website attracts only the intellectual and compassionate. [Insert big ass-kissing sound right here] Comments from my previous post were some of the most thoughtful I’ve ever read and there tended to be a confession of “I’m rambling now” when, in actuality, it helped give context to whatever comment or opinion was being made.
Huzzah to the ramblers!
Mostly what I learned from readers is that there is a sense of safety and respect for one another here and I have to say that I truly do try to cultivate that in my life. There was a time when a class came to me for English after getting reamed by their history teacher and I could tell there was no way any learning was going to take place unless we dealt with it. After they shuffled to their seats and sat looking at their feet I put down my book and asked, “What’s wrong with all of you? You look totally defeated.” It didn’t take long for them to tell me that they were yelled at and that they felt disgust at how they were treated. One boy, Adam, raised his hand and said, “Why is it that she keeps telling us that we WILL respect her and we don’t want to but we do respect you? What’s the difference? Why does she keep saying that she demands respect?”
This question, this true delving into knowledge was going to be my new objective for learning and I realized I probably would never get to that chapter of Corrie Ten Boom’s book The Hiding Place. Perhaps I could tie the two together in this lesson, I thought. Something about having respect for humanity and love and acceptance. I would give it my best shot because at this point I was teaching by feel.
“The difference, I believe, is that I don’t demand respect. I command it. Big difference.”
“What’s the difference? Demand? Command?”
Time to get out the dictionaries, kids. I never lose a teaching opportunity.
That’s what we did for that hour that one day. We looked up the difference between those two words and talked about how she made a peremptory request as if she had the right to be respected because she was older, more learned, or whatever reason she was attributing to her ‘respect’. I, on the other hand, knew that respect was a two-way street, an authority that comes after trusting them and getting them to trust me. If there is one thing I will say to new teachers getting ready to have their first set of fresh minds, it’s this: Don’t take respect for granted. You earn it, it is not afforded to you because of your position.
If for no other reason then do this: treat students like humans.
It is with this in mind that I’m writing something for BlogRhet this week. Heather reminded me of it today with a spirited exchange between a person who continued to question her in the comments section until I had no choice but to go there and make a comment myself. When people want understanding for matters of race, we have to leave behind our pre-existing notions. Matters of race can’t be left to the politics of just hair and skin. To be fair, it’s not even fair to use the “tacos and sombreros” approach to learning about another culture.
That reminds me: culture. (noun) - the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively.
When I tend to think of myself as a cultural person it’s probably due to a varied background that I was afforded and one that I feel truly lucky to have had. I grew up near the University of Chicago (in Hyde Park) where everywhere I turned there were people of different skin shades. My sisters and I attended a bi-lingual preschool and had an afternoon babysitter who was Hispanic who taught me how to speak Spanish. We went to a Catholic school when we got older and then did an after school program at the Jewish Community Center (which is where I learned the word schvartze so that later in life when I dated a Jewish guy and his grandmother called me that I knew it was a bad thing). It’s safe to say that my parents introduced us to a lot of culture.
Even still, I didn’t think we were all that different. If we went to dinner at a restaurant as a family there were always stares at my black and white parents and their black and white children. It wasn’t, as I look back on it, respectful at all. Perhaps it gave me a bit of a complex about people looking at me. Combine this with the times kids called me “oreo” or “zebra” or even “white nigger” but I can say with certainty that it never left a good taste in my mouth. Finally, I asked my mother why people always stared at us. She could have given me a lecture on Society and What People Think of Mixed Marriages and Miscegenation. Instead, she offered what a mother is supposed to offer:
“It’s because you and your sisters are so beautiful.”
What my mother did was introduce me to culture by allowing me the possibility that I could find beauty in differences, see similarities in one another that had nothing to do with our mere exterior casings, and gave me a sense of healthy respect for ethnicity and culture that wasn’t limited to that ‘tacos and sombrero’ approach.
She gave me something much meatier to chew on and digest. Thank you for that, Mom.
August 20, 2007 @ 4:54 pm | Filed under Education | Permalink |
Mrs RW Said,
August 20, 2007 @ 5:55 pm
The heart of a mother is indeed priceless, your’s especially. The “explanation” of why ignorant people say hurtful things would have put you in a space you’d have to: defend, deny, regret, or retaliate against. Instead she taught you about respect: how to command, not demand. What a mom! Is she also your shoe goddess?
Val Sutherland Said,
August 20, 2007 @ 6:33 pm
You have an amazing soul, and gosh I love your moms soul too!
great blog today, thanks for sharing.
V
Teressa Said,
August 20, 2007 @ 7:23 pm
I am new to your blog - I just found it last week. I LOVE everything I have read here. You are so thoughtful!
Rachel Said,
August 20, 2007 @ 7:47 pm
I love that quote from your mom. I may have to use it someday.
Tom Said,
August 20, 2007 @ 9:21 pm
“If for no other reason then do this: treat students like humans.”
I think that for everyone. Not just students.
Yes, I had to look up miscegenation.
Shash Said,
August 20, 2007 @ 9:48 pm
Sorry, Kel, but I’ve tagged you:
http://crazedmommy.blogspot.com/2007/08/tagged-on-first-day-of-school.html
Love you. Smooches.
Shash
dawn Said,
August 21, 2007 @ 7:42 am
This post is an excellent reason why we find solace and comfort here to discuss issues that almost always start some sort of contention amongst readers. Your eloquence and your ability to understand all sides invites everyone in.
Please thank your mother for me. As now I have the perfect answer for my ethiopian children when they asky why people are staring.
Also–to all of you new teachers. Please listen to Kelly’s words of wisdom. As a fellow teacher I can attest to the idea of commanding respect. Students (especially middle and high school ones) do not respond to being demanded to do anything. Treat them like people and they will do the same.
Heather B. Said,
August 21, 2007 @ 8:00 am
I must say the hardest thing for me about yesterday was that I was sick of explaining myself and re-explaining. Even though I made it clear and then linked to people who made it crystal fucking clear, it was like I was still be attacked no matter what I said or no matter how I tried to explain it. I was so incredibly frustrated by the end of the day. But thank you for being my voice of reason before I completely flipped my shit.
Dana Said,
August 21, 2007 @ 8:15 am
Kelly, this is my own curiosity prompting me to ask this question, but do you ever feel like people feel more comfortable talking to you because of your mixed race?
The reason I ask: My co-worker Terry is black and his wife is white and a few weeks ago we were talking about how is son was starting kindergarten this fall, and the challenges they are facing with race in their community.
Terry’s family lives an hour north of our office in a small, predominately white farm town and he mentioned that people are very weird about the fact that he is black UNTIL they realize his wife is white.
Suddenly they become more friendly and more wiling to speak to him. I don’t know if it’s because Robin grew up there and they know her or what!
Some of the neighbor kids wouldn’t play with their children until Robin started to get to know the other mothers. When they saw her white skin, suddenly the kids preferred to play with their children at the park.
I asked him why he thought that was and how he deals with these very obvious prejudices. He told me he’s just so used to it, and he thinks that people suddenly become more accepting or even just plain fascinated by his family because they are bi-racial.
I still think about what he said and I wondered if you ever noticed the same thing? (Or perhaps people in that town are just asshats.)
It just seems so fricken ridiculous; the way his family is treated.
Momish Said,
August 21, 2007 @ 8:16 am
Ah, moms are so wise, aren’t they? And dads too. One of my favorite movie scenes is in “Corrina, Corrina” where the little girl tells her dad someone at school called her fat. He says with complete conviction and authority, “You’re not fat. You’re beautiful.” I know it was meant to be funny, but it made me cry. A happy cry, though.
What you wrote reminded me of that!
Gillian Said,
August 21, 2007 @ 9:53 am
What a mom. What a great, great reply.
I looked at Heather’s post, and unfortunately read all the comments. Dear god in heaven, it was like banging your head against the wall. Forgive me Heather, but in retrospect you should have ignored her. She was not open or receptive in the least. She set MY teeth on edge! God bless your patience.
You, Mama Mocha, are receptive. Plus spirited. But I, as a white woman, don’t typically feel excluded from your righteous indignation. I’m allowed to be mad with you. So, I like that - too many times, I’ve had friends of other colors who would experience something wretched, then gather others of the same color to bitch about it, and ask me not to join in, because I just couldn’t understand. OK, that’s fair, I don’t. But you don’t understand my childhood loneliness as a Navy brat who moved every other year. Or my sister’s pain as the one with the lowest grades in the family, surrounded by A students. Or my girlfriends’ pain as a pair of lesbian partners, rejected by society and stared at with open hostility. Nobody knows anybody’s pain, really and truly. We all come from a place of pain, unique, and consuming. Kicking me out of your friendship when things get “racial,” though, deprives me of the opportunity to share your pain, and feel it with you, and maybe help heal you, or at least love you. Kelly - you don’t kick me out. And I thank you.
Aruni Said,
August 21, 2007 @ 11:35 am
Your mom seems really smart. My husband is white and our kids are mixed. I think they are beautiful. I’m fortunate to live in a time and place where that doesn’t seem to be much of an issue anymore…especially here in Austin, Texas. Now when I lived in West Texas I could see that being more of an issue.
When I lived in Albuquerque in the late 70s, I felt people in our predominatly white neighborhood didn’t know what to make of us. I remember a 9 year old blond haired, blue eyed kid at school calling me the N-word (i just cant type it here even though you have already typed it in your post). I had no idea what he meant but he said it with such hate that it scared me. I still remember how I felt when he called me that.
I hope my kids never feel like they don’t belong. I guess now people may stare at us when we got out, I just don’t notice anymore or care.
Oh, The Joys Said,
August 21, 2007 @ 12:09 pm
I love your mother’s comment about your beauty. She’s so right.
Tiggerlane Said,
August 21, 2007 @ 12:20 pm
Good response from your mom…and a good lesson for us all. Good and bad people come in all sorts of packages - and I hope I am exposing my daughter to a wide enough cultural experience (totally AWAY from where we live) so that she can be loving and accepting of people.
You sound like such a caring teacher - the lesson of that day had to be FAR better than what you had in your original lesson plan!
Jennifer James Said,
August 21, 2007 @ 3:28 pm
I’m not a child of a mixed marriage, but I might as well have been judging by the number of times I was called a “wannabe white girl” because I spoke proper English and my nose was always in a book.
Babz Said,
August 22, 2007 @ 3:16 pm
I am SO using your mothers wisdom! I have 4 adopted children, they all look different, I mean DIFFERENT. My husband is a very light-skinned man and I am very sheba comely–meaning I am dark skinned. So we are always getting stared, and I imagine people are trying to figure out the gene pool. So from now on I am going to say to my children exactly what your mama said. You are so beautiful that’s why they are staring!
Chookooloonks Said,
August 22, 2007 @ 5:56 pm
I think I love your mother.
Janice Said,
August 22, 2007 @ 6:15 pm
I think the reason that your mom was able to say (and believe) such an incredible thing to her child was because she was secure and self confident in her own “being”. Obviously she was able to pass this along to you and this is what you are teaching your own children, your students and your readers.
dorothy Said,
August 23, 2007 @ 8:04 pm
I pray for your mother’s wisdom with my own child.
Jazz Said,
August 24, 2007 @ 7:36 pm
Funny, I think our Moms could be pals.
Me: What is it with people staring at me?
Mother: It’s just that you are the most beautiful girl they’ve ever seen.
If I didn’t hold on to that, I’d hate to think of what I’d have for self-esteem.