Throughout my first eight years of teaching at a
predominately black and brown high school, I had several run-ins with white
colleagues where I was made to feel uncomfortable or outraged over something
that was said or done that I deemed as racist. For example, a teacher jokingly
said that her students all looked alike because they were cousins, or a white
male teacher described his fourth period as, “acting like a bunch of
monkeys.” Unfortunately, the straw
that broke the camel’s back occurred during the 2012-2013 school year, when a
group of white teachers at Smallville High School* (it was a school within our
larger school) decided to wear white t-shirts to school the last day of classes
(full disclosure, one black female teacher was given a t-shirt to wear, which
she did). The back of the t-shirt,
which the teachers designed, said “Wildershnitzel Family Renion” (“Renion,” we
later learned, was supposed to be “Reunion.” It was a typo.). It contained a picture of about 30 random
white people embedded in a poppy seed field scene from the movie The Wizard of Oz. In the lower right hand corner of the
image, a flying monkey rested upright.
Two black teachers, who were very upset, brought the t-shirt
to my attention. According to
them, other black teachers were angry, too. Many rumors were starting to fly about what the t-shirt
represented. Why was the picture of a group of all white people placed in a scene
from The Wizard of Oz? Why was
there a monkey on the shirt? What
does “Wilderschnitzel” mean?
Some teachers thought it was just plain racist. So I emailed the principal and asked if
I could host a round table discussion with the whole staff so that we could get
an understanding of why the t-shirts were made and what they represented.
The discussion occurred, and it was quickly revealed that
the t-shirt was made in jest because black students would always tell the white
teachers that they looked alike or were related. So the teachers thought it would be funny to create a family
reunion t-shirt, playing off of what the students always joked about.
Regardless of the alleged intention, the discussion became
very heated. Teachers, both black
and white, were extremely upset.
One teacher harkened back to her time when she was a part of integrating
the school where we worked and the discrimination she experienced during that
time. She also noted that one of
her students quipped, “They only left off the hood,” alluding to the KKK
hood. There was a lot of
self-preservation and self-defense. Some yelling and some crying. Maybe one apology.
When I left the room in tears, I was overwhelmed with
emotion, and an unforgettable thought: these white teachers just carried out
this act, and allegedly, not one of them considered the racial implications of
what they had done. In its purest
form, a group of white teachers wore white t-shirts to a predominately Black and
Latino school. Just this
description alone sounds ludicrous to me and racially charged. But not one of them, there were at
least 7, thought about race. I was
sickened thinking about what else had they said or done to our students without
realizing the racial implications of their actions. Had they told racist jokes? Belittled students? Made them
feel inferior? A knot grew in my stomach and tears fled from my eyes. One of our assistant principals saw how
upset I was and ushered me into our principal’s office. In the office, I was
doubled over, bawling my eyes out thinking about the teachers’ ignorance, and
our poor, poor students. I was
inconsolable. My principal tried
to touch my back, but he quickly removed his hand because it was wet with sweat
and was fiery hot. At that moment,
I felt an overwhelming sense of hopelessness: white people will never learn.
After that incident, I took some time to reflect. White privilege can blind and
perpetuate ignorance in the most well-intentioned person. Maybe these teachers really did not
know to think about race. Maybe
they were oblivious to the racial implications of their actions. From these thoughts, I decided that I
wanted to provide diversity training to our staff that dealt specifically with
race in order to develop a racial consciousness amongst teachers. I hoped to improve teacher to teacher
and teacher to student interactions.
After all, why aren’t discussions about race more prominent as we think
about helping teachers and students develop 21st Century skills?
I shared the idea with my husband, a female colleague with
whom I’ve shared previous conversations regarding the racial issues at our school,
and one of my former professors from UNC Chapel Hill. Thus, we began planning Daring Dialogue in the fall of 2013
and hosted it in the spring to a group of twenty-two teachers from diverse
backgrounds.
*pseudonym
*pseudonym
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