My high school was newly integrated the first year I went there. You would think I’d have tales of riots, public demonstrations, protesters, National Guard and such, but no. In fact, you couldn’t that tell my school was integrated. I never saw a single student of color in the halls, much less my classes. I would go to our infrequent assemblies and notice the leftmost quarter of the bleachers was an uninterrupted field of brown. “Oh, yeah, those are the kids from Kinloch,” I’d think, “Because of the busing. I forgot.”
There are several possibilities why I never saw any of them:
- I passed them in the halls and they were invisible to my middle-class white eyes.
- They missed the bus they had to catch early in the morning.
- They took a different track of classes; I was in the college prep classes and they weren’t.
I always thought the reason was #3, but after watching Raisin in the Sun the other night I’m starting to think it was #1.
We studied Raisin in the Sun in college-prep English that first year. (After viewing it on TV, I would like to applaud the curriculum director for his or her behemoth stones.) We discussed it at length, and debated assimilation, and were scandalized that anyone would want to buy out a black family. And then I think I must have gone into the lunchroom and floated past all the tables full of African-American kids without seeing them.
In a similar example of Ballsy Curriculum, our senior play was South Pacific. I remember the Theater instructor sighing over the casting options: for a play about prejudice, with several juicy roles for people of color, only one kid from Kinloch had tried out.
Then she admitted that given the bus schedule, bussed kids who participated in the musical would have had a twelve-hour school day three times a week. Perhaps they didn’t think of that.
(As I type this, the guest on the Colbert Report is this minute saying, “You can’t integrate what’s invisible.” Kind of spooky.)
I’ve heard that we are to be color-conscious, not color-blind. I’m certainly conscious of how very ethnically diverse my new TeddyJ team is. Every race, creed, sexual orientation is represented. If I’m color-blind, I’m dismissing a part of each one, if I’m color-conscious, start the pool of how many days before I’m fired for some stupid overly-direct remark.
4 responses to “Or does it explode?”
It’s like a Catch-22, but I think often it’s the majorities who are more offended by the overly-direct remarks, than the minorities for whom the remarks/questions/etc. are intended. (Please note that I used a word like “majorities” rather than “my fellow honkies”).
I prefer to be what I call “color-indifferent” (using ‘indifferent’ with the older meaning not of apathy but of no personal, selfishly motivated interest) — in that I know and acknowledge differences of race, culture and ethnicity but beyond that I don’t think a lot about it. Sometimes I’ll ask about something (food, for instance, or if I run across a holiday or some other cultural tidbit on Wikipedia) but I try my best to see my own race, culture, and ethnicity in the same way. I mean, honestly, how many people understand the nuances of real cornbread? It’s foreign food to so many 😉 Those who grok real corn bread (not that sugary sticky stuff passed off as corn bread) are my brethren, no matter their skin or eyes or accent.So far, it’s worked pretty well. I’ll keep using it until I come up with something better.
Color-apathetic. Nice, Sherri.That’s me. Of course, I figured out that I’m probably a good Hot Mom when my kids, who were entrancing me with tales of Rosa Parks, asked me “What’s a black woman?”
Christy – Well, I tested the waters today, after a fellow new employee said she was hired as part of the diversity program. I think I was okay.Sherri – I see the real cornbread as a butter delivery system, like grits.Hot Mom – You are a good Hot Mom!