In May I received a letter at work from a former student of mine from when I worked at a high school previous to my current job. Kayse was a freshman when I started working with her and I spent three years total doing that. During her senior year I left to work at a middle school. Her friend, Cheyenne, had known me since 6th grade and spent six years with me. They were often joined at the hip and took all the same AP classes and were in cheerleading together. If I saw one of them in the hallway I saw two.
Mrs. Wickham,
We were told that we had to write a thank you letter to a teacher. At first, I wasn’t even going to do it. I mean, of course, I appreciate all the teachers at my high school for giving me an education but I didn’t feel I could write any of them a thank you letter and mean it. When it actually comes down to thanking someone, the only person I could even think of was you.
I’m not writing this because I was told to, but because I want to let you know that I truly do appreciate you and thank you for helping me in decisions involving school and decisions involving life. All the times I came to your office, for whatever reason, I was never turned away or asked to come back later. I truly do appreciate you being there. I really don’t think I wouldn’t made it through my sophomore and junior years without you. I admire that you care enough about your students to just listen and help in any way. I admire that you are a strong woman and are willing to help girls like me become strong women also. Now that graduation is near, I want to thank you for making my high school years memorable and enjoyable, and most importantly, for contributing to making me who I am today. Thank you so much for everything you’ve done for me!
In late August, Cheyenne sent me a text message asking for the url to my blog because she knew I had one but couldn’t remember it. We went back and forth texting for a bit and then I asked her if she and Kayse would like to come over for dinner before leaving for college. They both jumped at the chance. It’s not often that I do things like this, but they were especially close to my heart. In fact, they told me a year ago that they were both upset about me leaving their school and that if I didn’t come to their graduation ceremony that they would never forgive me.
I was smart enough to know that was important to them.
We had our friends Alex and Craig over for dinner that night, too, and the six of us had a great time talking about what college would be like and the hope of new experiences. We talked about careers, getting involved with important things that matter, and love. We talked a lot about love and what it means. Toward the end of the night we promised to take them out for a fancy dinner and teach them to eat sushi because neither of them had ever had it before. Two weeks later we did that and I had just gotten finished writing about racial issues so our conversations revolved around that. Kayse is in an interracial relationship so it was hitting close to home. My son, Morgan, joined the discussions when I asked them if their families ever talk about race.
“We joke about it. We make references to it. But we don’t talk about it.” Cheyenne said.
“My dad just tells me never to bring my boyfriend home,” Kayse started to talk and then she started crying. It was such a tender moment and no one knew what to say. It made me realize how easily our family talks about race. We can start a conversation about it anywhere at any time with each other and that includes my sisters and their children and my parents and, of course, my own children as well as with The Cuban. (Again. He’s not Cuban. But he can talk race.)
It made me realize that my job with these girls, these young ladies on the cusp of adulthood, is far from over. I know that not everybody is ready for the conversation, but they are. They were aching to talk about race and the intricacies of it as a social structure and from a historical perspective. Both of them wanted to know more and they probed us as they studied how we talked about it. It was new for them and I could tell, but it made me consider that many families never discuss it. They pretend that these issues and differences don’t exist and focus on “sameness” and looking at the hurt in Kayse’s face I knew that wasn’t the case in her family.
When you talk about race with your family, what do you talk about? I mean, some families are doing that, right? Is yours?
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
I was fortunate enough to have a few people in my life who were to me what you were to these girls. I am grateful every day to them and people like you who are willing to put their hearts out there for kids.
Growing up we didn’t really talk about race–it wasn’t part of the conversation until the county was ordered to participate in a desegregation program and all I remember was how volatile the situation was. I still remember when MLK day was not a holiday and we had schools walk out of classes that day to protest not having the day off. My city has a history of racism and segregation.
But my family has to talk about race now–my husband and I are white and my kids are black. I was a teacher in schools where the majority of the students were black–so race has always been an important topic to me. I remember when I told my high school students that we were adopting from Ethiopia–they asked if the kid would be black–so we had to talk about that, but one students question has always stuck with me–”Mrs. Finley, who is going to teach your kids to be black?” This question perplexed me. Then we talked a lot about what it meant to be black. He was concerned that my kid wouldn’t “know the streets.” It was really interesting but also showed me just how little anyone is asked to explore race and what it means–regardless of our color.
So, we talk about it. We talk about it a lot–especially having black kids–who live in a mostly white world.
I grew up in Hyde Park, so you know that conversations about race were pretty standard. Dversity and inter-racial relationships were common so it wasn’t until I went away to college that I saw that the rest of the world wasn’t as open and liberal as where I came from.
Many of my classmates in Iowa had never had any interactions with people who looked different than them. So after the immediate shock, I found that the best thing I could do for the girls who lived on the same floor in the dorms was to answer their questions, even the pointed, count-backwards-and-take-a-deep-breath questions.
Many of the my classmates had no outlet to talk about race. They certainly had no one to talk to when they fell for the black football player but couldn’t tell their parents who were coming up for Family Weekend. So, there I was – accessible and willing to let them touch my hair and talk about the grandparents who disowned an aunt for dating someone colored. But I felt like I was supposed to talk about it because I wanted thinsg to be different. I wanted friends and I wanted them to like me for who I was, and that included my history and my culture.
I remember there were two guys who came from a small town whose parents came up to visit and these boys couldn’t wait to introduce the “city slicker” to them. They both grew up on pig farms and were amazed with my “big city life” (whatever – I rarely left my neighborhood at that time). I found that their parents were warm and gracious and invited me down to their farms. I don’t think that they had ever met an African American before and they were curious as well.
I guess what I’m saying (sorry for rambling) is that we have to talk about race. And even if it’s uncomfortable, it’s important. I hope that those girls took away a desire to really get to know people on their own merits and dig a little deeper.
I grew up in the military, and I had lots and lots of interactions with people of races other than mine. The high school I went to was filled with interracial couples. And yet my parents never once talked about race.
I’m biracial myself, but I grew up with my mom and she is white and never talked about race. I was absolutely clueless about what it means, at first because I didn’t grasp that this was something that affected me (but of course it did), and later because I had other things on my mind such as boys and makeup and all that.
My turning point was around the time I got pregnant at 25. I wanted to really figure out who I was and a huge part of that was to figure out what it means to be biracial and how it differs from being white. My husband, who is white, has been a great help and we often have discussions about these issues. My kids aren’t quite old enough to get a lot of these things, but I do think they are listening and I hope they will continue to listen and join the conversation one day soon.
You are an inspiration and wonderful role model. I would love to tackle these things with your compassion and patience, but more often than not I am simply not eloquent enough and I get easily frustrated, with other people and myself.
My husband has had relationships like what you describe, with boys he’s coached football over the last 10 years. He started with some of them when they were in middle school…now they’re in college and still come to him as a mentor. It’s a really special thing. I remember a few teachers and administrators, even from college, that were there for me in that way.
We talk about race all the time…casually, jokingly, seriously and intentionally. It helps that we’re a Black (him) and White (me) couple, our kids are both and we live in a really diverse suburb of Chicago. Opportunities present themselves on a daily badis, it seems! It’s a priority topic for me and I start a lot of conversations with friends about ditching their “colorblind” outlook in favor of creating families comfortable with talking about race.
I’ve only recently begun reading your blog but am excited to share your written work with my friends.
I love it when students come back to visit…it has to be one of the best parts of my job! To see what they have done with themselves is such an amazing thing. Thank you for this post…and showing that teachers are so much more than their four walls may show them as.
Hey… you… do me a favor. Find a Delorean and go to fall of 1999. Find me and get to work! Any and every student that comes in contact with you is super blessed if they take the blessing. Just don’t lose the feeling of wanting to help and I hope I have half the heart you have once I finally am an educator.
That letter almost made me tear up.
As the mom of two biracial children I am finding out that If I don’t talk about race to them, someone else will. My soon to be 10 year told me a couple of months ago that black people are ‘always loud and getting arrested.’ My husband was driving at the time and I just calmly asked her who told her that. Seems one of her friends at school told her. This friend has the same racial makeup as my daughter (black mom, white dad).
Now I have no clue where the girl heard this from, but I told my daughter that it’s not just Black people that are loud or that get arrested and that you could not put all of one color or group of people into a category. I’m not sure she understood or not, but the race stuff is an ongoing thing. This discussion will not be a one or two time thing. It will be an ongoing thing.
My other daughter told me she wants to be browner, cause i’m chocolate and she’s caramel colored. I told her she was perfect just the way she was. I hope I’m doing it right and can only keep talking to them when I see the chance.
We do talk about race–and inequity and privilege and sex and all the things that can be tough to talk about. It just makes me so sad that in 2011 a girl my daughter’s age would hear that about her boyfriend just based on the color of his skin.
Completely forgot to say that I am so envious of your relationship with those girls and the chance to be in the same place long enough for that relationship to form.
My timing wasn’t the best when I entered the teaching field two years ago–I haven’t been in one place longer than a semester.