It’s all about race

A person on an internet bulletin board on which I post once mocked me saying that for me, it’s always all about race. As I pay attention to everyday life in the LB household, I think that actually she is right to some extent. Race is an undercurrent of so much of what we do and say that that it wouldn’t be farfetched to say that it’s “all about race” for us.

 

Topics brought up by LB lately included her musing about whether or not there were black cowboys and where they actually worked. That led to a discussion of a famous former football player who became a black movie cowboy, which led to a discussion about the first black professional football player, along with notice of the first black basketball player and the discussion about whether the Harlem Globe Trotters were really professional basketball players or not.

 

A few days later, LB wanted to let me know that the book the teacher is reading out loud in class involves a black character being called “colored”, and that she was offended by this. The book, a Newberry Winner called “The Great Gilly Hopkins”, is about a foster child with a lot of baggage, including racism, and her learning to trust people. From what I can tell the teacher hasn’t even gotten to the worst example of racism in the book, so I will need to talk it over with LB so she’s prepared. At her age, LB takes things like this personally, so I guess this is another example of how for us, it’s all about race.

 

Then the other day, LB announced that Barack Obama simply HAS to win, because “too many white people get elected.” She went on to list our mayor, the governor and “all the other presidents” as being white and that in addition to Obama standing for causes LB supports, he isn’t just another white person. She paused. “And you’re white too, Mom.”

I assured her that I couldn’t really do anything about that!

 

All kids of color-black, biracial, Asian, Native and Latino want is to see themselves reflected in the world around them. For most, everyday life doesn’t do this, unless you happen to live somewhere with a diverse population in many aspects of society. With talk of the election on every station and channel and on the front page of every newspaper and even the TV Guide, it’s perhaps the most prominent illustration of how white the world can seem. And I guess I am to.

 

This morning, before I was really awake, LB had a new topic to discuss. There was a report in yesterday’s paper about hate crimes being on the rise in the greater Seattle area. A simple chart broke it down by racial motives, religious motives, sexual identification and so on, and then by town. LB may have forgotten her science assignment, but she could recite the figures on this report as discussed in class, by heart. The location with the most hate crimes, not surprisingly, was Seattle, the others being much smaller towns. The most prevalent motivation for these crimes was race.

 

And again, it IS all about race. This report is about people like HER, and she knows it.

 

There are other less serious issues too. LB does not believe, AT ALL, that I can learn how to make proper fried chicken or ribs like her aunties. She also makes me promise that I will NEVER sign up for an adult hip hop class, even if it’s to lose weight and not perform. “Old” white mothers simply can’t dance. And I’d have to agree with her about that based on my attempts at home.

 

Lest you think otherwise, our everyday life really does include other topics, in fact, most of the time we discuss the weather, how our days were at work and school, and what we should have for dinner. We might have as spirited a discussion about the latest loss by whichever sports team is on deck at time as we would about politics. But our lives have a layer of racial undercurrent that I don’t believe most Caucasian families contain. As much as I rounded my older kids’ education to include the study of other populations, it’s not the same unless you live it. And I’m only part of the discussion by default.

 

Would I REALLY take a second look at the book LB is having read in class if my child was a privileged white girl? Would I even know who Woody Strode (the famous ex-football player/Hollywood cowboy) was?  I know I wouldn’t feel the pain of a brown child complaining that too many elected officials are white.

 

Whatever the racially related topic, having LB, living with Lee and having the extended family that I do has been an education in itself. It’s more valuable than anything I could have studied in school at any level. It helps me “get it”-the big picture about race. And yet, I’m only beginning to learn.

The Latest from Latteland

In the end, the LB’s class used some McCain supporter vs. Obama supporter name-calling as an example of bullying. LB got to be an Obama supporter, no one played either candidate. LB was quite pleased that she a) got to support Obama and b) didn’t mess up her lines.

 

We’ve been dealing with a serious round of asthma attacks-LB will be fine for a day or two, then end up sprawled on the couch hacking her lungs out. Usually a bad episode sets her back for a week or so, but we’re into week two, with three daily medicines and still having problems. Having her regular doc on sabbatical isn’t helping-we’ve seen three different doctors (if you count the nurse-practitioner), more nurses than I can count,  plus three pharmacists in the last 9 days.

 

A long phone consultation with the fill-in doc for our regular guy this morning gave me some really helpful information. Apparently LB’s minor cold has caused some serious lung inflammation and the cold is lingering as well. So some days LB can manage, others the slightest thing such as extra activity (yesterday it was dancing to “George Washington’s favorite song” in music class) will set her off. School work has taken a backseat to her asthma-I feel like I should apologize to her poor teacher!

 

We have new asthma management plan in place and I think that will help a lot, in addition to the fact that soon the long-acting meds should begin to take hold. It’s almost noon and so far the school hasn’t called with an asthma report, so I am cautiously optimistic.

 

Asthma is a huge problem among African Americans. Not only do they have a nearly 40% higher rate of asthma than whites, they have higher rates of hospitalization and death from it.  That is something always lurking in the back of my mind every time we  go through another bout with this horrible affliction.

 

Luckily, we have a very good insurance plan and have caregivers who seem well-educated in the treatment of asthma, in addition to being culturally sensitive. But having spent $200 on hospital and doctor visits and medications in the last week, and that’s ONLY co-pays, it’s easy to see why those in poverty have a hard time getting this illness under control.

 

We can afford it, though not if we had to hand over that kind of money every week. But what about those not quite at the government-subsidized level of health care, but who can’t fork over $100 for the ER and $30 for yet another medicine that may or may not work?

 

And we’re lucky regarding work too. Lee has a very flexible and forgiving job where he can often just leave at the drop of a hat, and I work only part-time. But what about those who can get docked or fired for missing work to pick up a sick child for the third time in three days? In the end, it’s no surprise that white, affluent people have better rates of asthma management and fewer hospitalizations and deaths.

 

Other than several partially missed days of school and consternation over the class play, LB continues to like school-enough that she recommended it to a white parent of a biracial child we met in the store yesterday. She did sigh and wish out loud that there were at least one other black or black/white biracial kid in her class, though. Sometimes you just want to see a familiar looking face, you know?

 

The school’s diversity committee met with the district’s head of the advanced learning programs last week, and we found time to attend in between asthma crisis. We got some hard facts on the number of black children identified for testing into the programs last year-some 30% higher than the previous year, although only a handful ended up qualifying and moving into those programs. LB is one of only two black children on her entire floor at school!

 

But the district is making and even greater outreach this year, along with making a more direct effort to open the programs up for review to all families of color. As the director said, it can be hard to even want to take a school tour when all the parents giving those tours is white and blond.  Our committee will be helping by being tour guides, even if it means setting up special tours. We’re also linking to the parent group that works on the entire spectrum of highly advanced learning from 1^st through 12^th grade.  Maybe by the time she’s in middle school, LB will have more brown faces in her classes.

 

On another subject, LB mentioned something over the weekend that I’d noticed as well. She had her third week of her beloved hip hop class on Saturday-we finally have a teacher almost as good as her original, beloved Coach T (it helps that she’s one of Coach T’s teen group members and the new group leader). Every session has started with a wide range of kids, from age 5 or so up to young teens, boys and girls, black and white and other ethnicities as well. BUT, by the third class or so, all the white kids have dropped out.

 

The area is changing, with more whites moving in every day, so it’s no surprise to see more well-off white parents and their kids turn up for this and other classes each season. But although the instructors have always been welcoming to kids of any ability and background, the Caucasian families never stick around. It’s not the music, it’s always kid-friendly. It’s not the parents-we welcome any chance to chat up our kids’ interest in dance.

 

What makes it even more baffling is that I’m rarely the only white mother there, but those of us who stay have the kids of color-it’s the all-white families who never stick it out. I wonder why-I’m not sure what the drop-out mothers and kids are expecting when they come-or why they leave.

 

All in all, this has been a week of reminders that life in a family with a child of color sees some things through a different lens. I suspect it will always be so.

“You Should be Obama”

LB’s class is writing a play as part of the school’s anti-bullying program. They’re doing it like a newscast, where there will be interviews with kids about bullying and a mock expert on what to do about it. And the end of the “broadcast” they want to say something like, “and coming up, the debate between Barak Obama and John McCain”

 

Two of LB’s classmates decided that she should be Obama, since after all, she is the only one in the class who is a mix of black and white like he is. Interestingly, one of the girls making this proposal is also biracial, but she doesn’t have any black heritage. LB thinks it’s just ludicrous.

 

“I suppose,” she said, yanking her hair back as tight as it would go, “that if I do THIS, then I MIGHT look like a boy.” Though she’s a fierce Obama supporter (she’s waiting with baited breath the next debate), she doesn’t want to BE him!

 

It reminds me of the time Lee was in high school and asked to be in the class play because the play had a black male character and he was, well, black. He’d never expressed an interest in drama, ever, and therefore, declined. A white student played that character. They also asked the sole black girl in the class to play the black female role, she also declined.

 

It’s a scenario that has simply never come up in LB’s schooling. In her previous schools, chances are that ANY play would have by definition been cast with primarily children of color. In her preschool through first grade classes, it wouldn’t have even been an option to have white kids in any roles, because there were none.

 

I suspect that the teacher will rule out the political segue altogether, since it really has nothing to do with bullying and there’s only so much time they have to write and produce this thing. But I wonder what LB will do if it comes down to her still being asked to play Obama, who is a BOY, biracial though she is.

 

On a related note, the teacher has been talking about upcoming subjects and mentioned that history will be starting soon. The class will cover colonial history, something LB isn’t too crazy about. “I think they should do civil rights,” she announced out of the clear blue sky the other day.

 

Luckily we just had a curriculum night with handouts and all, so I had a ready answer to that. According to the paper her teacher gave out, although colonial history will be included, so will civil rights and a bit on how various populations got to this country. I suggested that Ms. G appears to be planning more than just typical colonial history after all. And there’s something more LB can do if she wants to share some black history with her class.

 

The kids will all be doing a unit on family history which they will share with their classmates (I think this will be school-wide) and I told LB that she might take that opportunity to explore how her black ancestors lived as well as her Italian and Polish ones. She’s taking that under advisement.

 

Otherwise, school goes well. After a start that had LB thoroughly intimidated by all the new faces, she’s found some friends and is also enjoying the school work (with the exception of certain math assignments). She has a perfect record on her spelling tests (the teacher uses often misspelled words), and would rather pluck her eyelashes out than do cursive. She loves science and is enjoying the terrarium and aquarium at each set of tables.

 

The parent diversity committee continues its work to diversify the school and to bring cultural awareness to the parents and students. We have an event planned for December, which will focus on various cultures’ holiday customs. Things are good.

 

Now if we could get the buses to run on time…

Magazines and Gentrification

Our neighborhood has been changing. When Lee and I moved into our house 7.5 years ago, it was one of the most diverse parts of the city, and even now, the first three houses on our block are home to people of four different ethnicities. But not far down the road as more and more condos-excuse me, townhouses-go up, the population is getting whiter and more affluent.

 

We’ve seen it in the walkers coming from the bus stop near our house. Seven years ago, I was often the only white person on that bus, surrounded by blacks, Chinese, Vietnamese, some Cambodians and Hispanics. Now I see young white families in Birkenstock sandals with slinged babies couched next to the Chinese elders with bags from their favorite Asian market on the seats and on our street.

 

It’s happening all over Seattle and other urban cities as housing gets more and more expensive so that only the formerly less affluent neighborhoods become affordable to starting families or house flippers. There’s an uneasy tension in some areas, as everything from local shops to yard landscaping begins to change. At least one Seattle school ended up closing as newly arrived white families refused to send their children to it, leaving its student body so shrunken that it couldn’t sustain itself. Area residents are now lobbying for it to become a community center.

 

I was struck by the contrast of the pros and cons of gentrification the other day when I ran into the local grocery store for some magazines for LB. Charged with cutting out some pictures that represented her family and interests, I realized that my occasional purchase of “women’s magazines” for the recipes wouldn’t give LB too many of the kinds of pictures she’d need. You don’t see too many black faces in those magazines with the exception of the anti-drug ads and the ADD medication ones (note the irony).

 

So I figured to grab a couple of the black magazine standards-Essence and Ebony, both typically kept at the checkout stands of that store. Except that they weren’t there. Not in the check-out line, not in the large magazine display, not in the store. With the exception of a couple of specialty magazines about hip hop and one featuring black fashion, there were no longer magazines of color.

 

I guess when the store remodeled and added flooring that looks like polished granite, lots of organics and a wine section the size of my living room, it had to also cut out some of the things that it had carried when the shoppers were mostly black and Asian.

 

So I went home empty handed. LB found the dearth of black faces I expected in my magazines, although she did find a rock climbing girl who looked a lot like her sister and a very cute puppy and kitten, not that we OWN either of those. I offered to drive over to one of the large chain stores in a part of town not yet gentrified to the same extent, where I’d be sure to find a black family magazine, but LB decided to go with the teacher’s other option: bring in family photos.

 

LB stood by her father as he scrolled through our (too) many digital photos and chose the ones she wanted. Plenty of black and biracial faces that way!  Luckily they printed out just fine on printer paper, and LB can cut and trim all she wants with no damage to the originals.

 

It was a simple solution, and I’m glad we have a computer, printer and digital camera. But wouldn’t it be great if LB, her Hispanic and Asian classmates could all walk into the nearest store and grab a magazine or two full of faces that actually reflect society? I should note: we did find a magazine with a good variety of ethnicities. It was the American Girl catalog, full of real and toy girls representing the tossed salad that is America. No boys, though. I guess you can’t have everything.

 

In the meantime, I’m a little sad to see our little neighborhood grocery change so much. There was something special about the familiar, raucous Motown music piping over through the sound system, the strange yet wonderful food choices throughout the store, and yes, the magazines in the check-out lanes offering something other than the desert of the month and celebrities in the latest fashions.

 

I’m glad the newer residents have so many more organic choices, and I’m sure they appreciate the wine shop, but I wonder where the shoppers who will still want pig’s feet and ox tails will go now?

First Day of School

It’s the first day of school, and LB alternated between nearly vibrating out of her skin and being on the verge of tears. She settled on being quietly optimistic once we got to school and stood in the assigned room lines with other kids and parents. By the time we began our walk into the building (parents were invited to a coffee hour), she was happily chatting with the two girls in her class she already knows. Whew!

 

Coffee hour was a chance to meet other parents and get the official opening day speech from the principal and the PTA president (she boasts near 100% membership and $150,000 in fundraising revenues). We met up with a couple of parents we know, discovered that we are not alone in being victims of an incredibly screwed-up transportation system (let’s put it this way-LB originally was scheduled for bus pick up 8 blocks away, then not at all, when the closest stop is within sight of our front door).

 

Lee looked around at the 300 or so parents and said, “I am the only black male here”. He was joined later by another parent, who looked so relived to see Lee that I thought they knew each other. “No,” Lee, assured me, “I’m just another black face.” The man and his wife, like us, is a first-year parent at the school, and similarly concerned with the lack of color there. He’s already signed up with the diversity committee as we did.

 

Like us, “S” wants his son to have an experience in which race doesn’t overshadow education, in which he’ll feel as welcome as the dozens of blond and blue-eyed kids. S was relieved to see two other black boys in  his son’s class-which may be a record with only about 15 black students in the entire student body of 500+.

 

It’s hard to explain, I’ve found, because it’s not JUST about seeing kids who look like you. It’s about culture, history and even commonalities like clothes and hair styles.

 

LB got her hair braided yesterday. She’s thrilled, after having to start last year with a “lice haircut” to have it long enough to BE braided, even if it’s only the top of her head.  So we went down to the little shop near our house and she sat for an hour getting it cornrowed so tight to her head that she needed Tylenol afterward. Although I’m biased, I must say it’s lovely. But it’s also hair that many of the kids, and parents, haven’t seen up close.

 

All morning, both parents and kids were commenting on LB’s hair. Although I didn’t see it happen, she mentioned that people were touching it. This is one of the things LB will be dealing with-being so different to some people at this school that people will want to touch her hair.

 

 It’s a small thing and not racist, but it’s hard to stand out, and LB does stand out. In her old school and our corner of the world, seeing braids like hers would more likely invite questions on who did it, how long it took and how much it cost, because many of the girls get their hair braided, and everyone is looking for the best deal. At this school, she’d get less notice if she showed up with purple hair.

 

Before we left for school, Lee and I sat down to talk to LB. In a nutshell, we reminded her that this is a whole different ballgame. The pace is faster, the school more traditional, the homework more plentiful, the faces more white. Whether she wants it this way or not, LB will be the focus of attention in several ways-she’s a new student, one of just three in her class, while many others have been there since first grade. She’s from a middle class family in a part of town where some people still won’t drive at night, and she’s biracial, in a school with an overwhelmingly Caucasian population.

 

We told LB that no matter what, we’re here to support her and go to bat for her, but that her end of the deal is to, as Lee put it, “represent” and prove to everyone that she belongs there. As she walked down the hall, chatting with her friends without so much as a backward glance at us, she was acting like she did. Time will tell if that lasts.

The Prodigal Returns

I didn’t mean to take the summer off-somehow a few days turned into a few weeks, which has turned into almost two months of silence on my part. But with school around the corner and a break in my strangely busy summer, it’s time to get back on the bike and start riding.

 

It’s no coincidence that I’m starting up again as LB wraps up a summer of vacation camps and visits with friends and relatives. These activities have given me plenty of notice that yes, still, bringing up a biracial child is on a different plane than bringing up a single-race child.

 

Last week, LB attended Vacation Bible School at her church. Like many activities there, it was a mix of religion, social justice education and community bonding. Before the Bible passage of the week and the home-cooked fried chicken dinner, LB’s class heard about school in the Deep South about 50 years ago.

 

“Sister Mary”, a woman in her 60’s, talked about taking the city bus to school at a time when blacks sat in the back. She learned quickly to hold her books tight to her chest so that white kids could not grab them out of her hands and to watch her feet so that the white kids could not trip her. Naturally, her school was segregated. She had friends in school; it was just a matter of getting there in once piece.

 

Mary was still in school when desegregation came along, which brought its own set of challenges. Instead of being harassed only on the buses to and from school, she was harassed AT school as well. But she recalled being glad of the change-at least the school allowed her and other black students through the door. The religion lesson was about forgiveness. It sounds to me as thought Mary had a lot to forgive.

 

The first thing out of LB’s mouth when we picked her up was to retell Sister Mary’s story and to grill each of us about our own schooling experience. “Was YOUR school segregated, Mommy?” I told her that my state was so white I didn’t share a classroom with a child of color until high school. In a school of 2500, there were about 10 black students, a handful of Chinese, and another handful of Hispanics. College was different-for the first time I was around kids from all over, of many races, languages and incomes. It was a breath of fresh air.

 

Next was Lee’s turn. He told LB that his school wasn’t segregated either, that in fact, his best friend until 3^rd grade was a white boy who lived nearby. His high school actually had fewer black students than his elementary/middle school, though, because he paid his own way through a private school in a part of town that was overwhelmingly white. While it wasn’t segregated and he enjoyed most of his experience there, even in the late 1970’s there were a few signs that there was still progress needed.

 

I only recently heard one story about this: when the drama club chose a play that included in the cast a black couple as household servants, Lee was asked to take on the role of the husband because, well, he was black, and a black female student was asked about the wife’s role. Never mind that neither had shown an interest in drama. They both declined. The play was held with white students in those roles.

 

And Lee was discouraged from running for class president his senior year because the powers that be didn’t consider him electable. Just another sign that prejudice is NOT ancient history! Lee’s best friend made school history just three years later when HE was elected senior class president as the first black to do so.

 

LB absorbs these stories along with stories about the mundane things her father and I did growing up. The total picture helps her with perspective when she sees on the news, as we did a couple of days ago, that a biracial family in a town nearby woke to find racist graffiti on their fence. This happened in the same area where not long ago, another family of color found a cross burning on their lawn.

 

Do we talk about and deal with race every day? No, not really, other than the obviousness of the color difference right in our own home. But is it there as an under-the-surface “thing” that can’t ever really go away. People who lived segregation are still around, still telling their stories, still remembering what the pain was like. People in families just like ours are still waking up-far from the Deep South-to KKK and foul language in full view of their children.

 

School starts in three weeks. LB will begin her journey in a school not unlike her father’s high school. The difference is that we’ll be right alongside her as part of a parent committee committed to bringing in more children like LB. It’s something that Sister Mary could only have dreamed about when she was LB’s age. There’s been a lot of progress. But that fence to the north of here in need of repainting, is a reminder that we’re not out of the woods yet.

Making New Friends

We went to the  “Global Whirlwind” event sponsored by the diversity committee at LB’s new school. We won’t be school parents there for sevreal months, but we are already members, holding true to our promise to be the change we want to see. Doing so has had several consequences, all of them good.

For one thing, we are getting to know other parents beyond just passing in the halls. This is especially important to us since most all of the kids will be arriving and departing by bus, so the chance to just chat with other parents on a daily basis won’t be as common as it is where LB currently goes to school. There are two reasons the school is so dependent on buses-one is that there’s almost no parking at all nearby, and the other is that it draws from a city-wide pool. In any case, we’re on a first-name basis with a dozen parents and their kids already.

It’s hard to not fall into conversation as you wipe down tables and set up craft materials. I’m very shy in real life, so it’s hard for me to just chat with total strangers. But given our common goal of making the school a better place for kids of color, conversation happens. It’s a lot easier for me than just chatting up some random parent about what the kids did in class yeaterday or how about that book their reading.

LB, being a VERY social person, immediately made several friends. She dragged one girl over to us and said, “My new friend wants to meet you.” The kid stood there with a deer in the hedlights look and politely said hello and shook our hands. By the end of the night a whole group of kids were playing tag around the room as parents put away materials and tables. We couldn’t leave until LB said goodbye to her “tag friends”. While the school’s makeup is largely white, the diversity committee is anything but. So LB already has friends who look a little more like her than not.

But there was a good turnout among the Caucasian families, and some even hung around till the very end, long enough that LB met some of them too. It was good to see that at this event at least, the divide between races that we’d heard about didn’t seem to be present.

We also met an African American parent who has two children at the school. Thus far, most of the parents of color we’ve met have had at least one negative experience or opinion to share with us. This parent had only positive things to say, and like all of the parents we’ve talked to, black, white or Asian, said the children had had a great education.

Apparently it’s not common for parents to join a committee for a school where their child is not a student. We were complimented often on our early commitment, for being there, for bringing LB. I always give the same answer when someone asks about this: we want to be part of the change we want to see. We want to be able to say when next year a parent of color asks if they should send their child to this school, to do it, without reservations. 

Next up: a summer picnic, date to be determined. But first, the final meeting of our scrappy committee. We’ll talk about plans for next year, what events to sponsor, and how to reach out to other families like ours-those with family members of color and new to the school but who haven’t yet  joined us.  Meanwhile, I’ll continue to be reminded of that old Girl Scout song about making new friends. In this case, it’s the new friends who are the “gold”.

Friendship and Race

Some years ago, I was a member of a small, private email list for a group of mothers who’d given birth at about the same time. We shared our kids’ firsts-walking, talking, teeth, etc. and we supported each other through separations, divorce, new jobs, moves, and so on. Most of what we shared, though, was the everyday stuff of life.

 

LB was the only biracial child of the group, and I was the only one in a mixed marriage. Sometimes it was clear that the other women just couldn’t relate to what I was saying-my situation was so different from theirs that I may as well have been on another planet.

 

The time that LB cried and wished she was white like me was one of those times. The other women assured me that LB just wanted to look like her mom, as any kid would, but it was more than that, and I knew it. Blondie never wished for brunette hair, and her girl cousins didn’t wish away their red hair, or their curly hair, or their straight hair. LB wanted to be white, because, she explained, “White people are better”. She was three years old.

 

As with any online format, we moved on from there, but I was left with the disquieting feeling that this wasn’t going to be the first time I didn’t get through. I was right. Another situation came up where the poster talked about her niece wanting to go to the prom with a black kid, and the girl’s grandmother, who was raising her, I believe, refusing permission. The girl was thinking of going anyway. But my fellow list member felt otherwise. She should just let it go and make grandma happy, she thought. Why make waves?

 

Again I clashed with my friends. Keep quiet? Make waves? Fifty years after segregation ended it was ok to let a racist old lady call the shots about one’s prom date? I argued rather forcefully that the niece was the one with common sense, that she should, indeed, be allowed to date the young man in question. Again, I wasn’t getting through. This time, though, I was left feeling more than disquieted. I wondered if maybe I was dealing with people who, in reality, wouldn’t want MY child dating one of THEIRS.

 

I bring this up because last weekend was the prom for Blondie and her classmates. She went with several other couples, and not one of them was a same-race duo. Blondie and her best friend, who are as white and blond as they come, went with their black boyfriends. The other couples were Asian and black or mixed race. I’m sure within the school population itself there were same-race couples, but no combination even registered as a blip on the schools’-or the kids’ radar. And I’m proud of the fact that Blondie didn’t see it as a problem either.

 

It probably won’t come as a surprise that our group of mothers fell apart soon after the prom incident. It started going seriously downhill when a few of them thought that my advocating for teaching our preschool and kindergarten-aged kids about segregation and the civil rights struggle would “ruin their innocence.”  Since LB’s innocence had already been “ruined” by real-life comments about her skin color, I found their position difficult to accept.

 

I’m not in touch with these women any longer, and there are times it still hurts. I was “removed” from the group after one too many hard-edged positions on what they felt was a support-only list. I guess that for some people,  there’s no place for discussions of race  among friends. I’d by lying if I said I never missed them. But I remind myself that they are the ones missing out- about another way of seeing things, of watching, if only from a distance, LB grow up. And as Blondie left for her prom with a boyfriend as dark as she is white, I thought of those women, and I knew I was right to speak up the way that I did.

Hot Seat Time

In about an hour and a half, Lee, I and several other parents will be meeting with the school district’s leader of the advanced learning programs along with the principal of the school where we’re sending LB next fall. In preparation for the meeting, I reread the report released last fall about the program. Once again, I was not encouraged.

Having now met some of the people staked with making the recommended changes, and having signed on to send LB into the fray, though, the report has a different feel. Because the meeting will focus on diversity issues, it gives Lee and I a specific focus for both statements and questions.

The essence of the statement I plan to make is this:I grew up in a middle-class white neighborhood, went to an all-white private school, and the closest I ever came to being bullied at the elementary level was being called a teacher’s pet. HOWEVER, I knew that if I had a real problem, I could go to the teachers, and certainly my parents knew that they could. This report makes it clear that children of color at the school in question are bullied because of their skin by both students and TEACHERS. Further, it says that neither they, nor their parents have found a “trustworthy” response from some teachers and administrators.

My question is: The report says that teachers, administrators and counselors  involved in this program should receive cultural sensitivity training to appropriately address this issue and formulate a proper response to racial bullying. WHAT IS BEING DONE so that my child won’t be on the receiving end of racial harassment? And, what are you doing so that parents like us feel HEARD?

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Musings

LB starts the dreaded WASL test today. It’s the Washington state version of the No Child Left Behind standardized test requirement. She’s in third grade and has been hearing about this test (and fretting about it) since she started kindergarten. She seemed ok this morning, having learned that it will begin with reading and include less math than reading, which is her strongest subject. She was also glad to learn than kids who fail are not kept back solely because of this test-unless one is in high school, where failing it means you do not graduate.

Kids are already tested throughout the year on core subjects, and I do not see the point of such a high-stakes test, to the point where teachers spend two weeks teaching the kids HOW to take it, not so much WHAT they’ll be tested on! And don’t get me started on the high school level test, where kids with a 4.0 could actually risk not graduating if they fail.

It’s not likely, I know. But Blondie has classmates who missed passing one portion of the thing, despite being in advanced classes. One kid was dealing with problems at home, another was an ESL student. Luckily the state has decided to allow kids to take special prep classes and retake this test, but I would like to see it gone altogether. If a student is passing his or her classes and the tests in those classes, why add this test on, which is graded by anyone with a college degree the scoring company hires off the streets?

Ok, ok, moving on…

The brown baby dolls are getting heavy play at home these days. LB has a huge collection of dolls (thank you Goodwill) of many races. Sometimes there’s a mix in her play, other times she goes with all-white or all black. We’ve been lucky in that of the dolls we’ve found or LB’s received as gifts, that the shades of brown vary from dark to very light-like real people.

Lately LB is busy with her American Girl Bitty Baby we found for a dollar (!) at Goodwill. She’s the tan one, just like LB’s American Girl nine year old. She’d smack me if she was here, because once again I’ve forgotten what this baby’s name is. They all have names and histories; I love LB telling me the backstories she creates.

The larger dolls do not wear doll clothes, which are expensive and usually junk. We buy real baby clothes for pennies at Goodwill, so these “kids” are always wearing the latest fashions. The other day we found a three-piece outfit for LB’s only boy baby doll (I KNOW his name-it’s Daniel). The outfit included dress pants, a white button-down shirt and a vest. Naturally, LB had to dress Daniel in it immediately and pretend to take him to church. I believe my “grandchild” was very well -behaved in his new outfit.

Speaking of church, we attended LB’s church to hear her sing in the choir last weekend. She’s one of the older kids now, back in the last row so that the little kids, who can’t quite carry a tune or move in unison yet, can see the choir director better. I’m not especially religious, but I always get a thrill out of hearing these kids give it their all.

As it was youth day at the church, the service included recognition of accomplishments by youth members. This isn’t something I grew up with, and I was very touched by the way a boy who’d gotten into the high school of his choice, with a high GPA, was given a standing ovation and the well-wishes of the entire congregation. “And he’s polite to his mother, too,” the pastor added. That too got a round of applause. “It takes a village” really means something there.

LB will have her moment in the sun in a few weeks when she is honored for getting into the advanced learning program for next year. The recognition will include that she’s one of the few non-Asian children of color to make the cut, and that she’s planning to join the diversity committee to make sure kids like her have a voice there.  It’s pretty powerful to know that you have a whole church membership behind you.

I’ve discovered a favorite old show on a cable station-anyone remember Quantum Leap? It’s on at our house in the late afternoon, and an episode came on in which the hero was transported back to the 1950’s as a black man in the south. I was going to record it to watch later, but LB wanted to see it. 

She went about playing with her toys as the episode unfolded, but I could tell she was paying attention. She saw a white hospital try to turn away an injured black child, and the hero getting jailed for insisting otherwise. At at the end, she saw the man’s white employer sit at the lunch counter with him as he made a small stand against segregation. LB had tears in her eyes. She looked at me, but didn’t say anything. Then she shook her head and went back to her little pets.

There was an article in today’s paper about a program in which people who lived those times are passing on their stories to minority high school students. I think that’s a great way to make it real for them, to make sure that they get it regarding what options they have in front of them now. We are fortunate that in our own family LB can get some of this history first-hand.

I’m reminded of the person who insisted we don’t need to “burden” our children with this information, what with it being ancient history and all. But it’s BECAUSE it’s a part of our history that we need to pass it on, as far as I’m concerned.

Prom tickets go on sale tomorrow at Blondie’s school. She’s going with her boyfriend, a black student. A letter just last week to one of those self-help columnists was from another senior in another school. She too was white and wanted to go to the prom with a black student. Her parents refused. And THAT is why racial history isn’t ancient history.