I was eight and firmly believed that I was stupid. This haunting feeling of inferiority was birthed in our relocation to the south. The first day I went to school the teacher seemed bewildered by my presence. It was as if I had found the wrong class. At the time I did not know why I was being ostracized. Nonetheless it pained me; the teachers had to “assess me” so I sat alone while others joined in group study. On the playground the students articulated the subtext of the classroom experience; you’re a stupid nigger. The experience left me feeling scared and wondering if by being black was I implicityly subordinate to my white counterparts. In New York I attended a prominent Montessuri school, they were students of different cultures and I loved and exceled in my academic studies. My parents attempted to re-create this setting by enrolling me into a sounthern private school but I was the only student of color in the class and many kids had never been in contact with a person of color, including my teachers. In fact, there was not one single person of color who taught during my entire six years there. Incidentally my younger brother of eight years who also attended that school was also never taught by a person of color. These factors culminated into one devastating outlook: I actually started to believe that I was not as smart or as talented as all those white kids…and it hurt me deeply. I was too ashamed to disclose my fears to my parents but they sensed it. They had a conference with the teacher and the aid; the clasroom teacher admittedly felt uncomfortable teaching a black student; she had never taught one before and her college classes did not prep her for this sort of thing. The whole “we are all being equal in the eyes of Jesus Christ” thing had eluded her.
It would be years before I recovered from the teasing, taunting, belittling, and prejudice that took place and for the most part the teachers and the institutions never changed. It was me who changed. I learned that quiting was not an option; I stopped thinking about who I was on this racist,classist, elitist spectrem. My only goal was to thrive in any setting under any circumstance. As I grew older my color became its own rich source of intellectual understanding. I learned that because I do not have the invisible back-pack and because I am not white that my experience was uniquely profound. My color enpowered me and not only did I feel intelligent; I felt beautiful.
I am a teacher now and many of my students are minorities and they too feel inferior and as a result want to quit. When I try to teach them about African American history or Hispanic history they roll their eyes; they claim they dont want to hear about how their ancestors were slaves. They are trepidatious when we talk about unknown figures in black history How do I defeat a tradition that insists on exploiting black culture, who unapologetically embraces hate language, and targets blacks and other minorities as sapegoats for years upon years. My students think that the Caucasian or Asian student sitting next to them is smarter…just because. It’s not like I’m handing them textbooks that have been passed through white students for ten years and are in poor condition; in fact I don’t use textbooks because I don’t trust them. The voice of mass media drowns mine: Fox news, Transformers 2, District Nine, Kickass, and Gran Torino. Should my students be able to navigate through this plethora of prejudice…yes; but they’ve been hearing and seeing these messages their entire life. Unfortunately even some of my student’s parents have bought into this pre-packaged, frozen black cultural identity which amounts to an apathetic gaze into a bleak future.
I know we have to fight but which battle is first? If only I could chanel my student’s pain into empowerment. If only they realized that quitting is never an option. If only our voices were in unison, if only to drown out the noise.
* Invisible backpack by Peggy Mcintosh- An amazing and inspiring article
Valcin
