I felt floored by a realization I had the other day.
As part of our training for teaching in the fall, we have diversity training sessions every Friday. This Friday’s session was amazing. We were talking about recognizing and dealing with bias, and we started off by doing some mental exercises that got me thinking. Scott (our curriculum specialist, who leads the sessions) asked us to write down, for each of a list of things, what the first mental image was that came to mind. He started his list: a student with behavioral problems, a student with a troubled home life, a student who is not a successful student—and it really troubled me that, at least for all of the categories I just mentioned, the image that came to mind was of a black boy.
I know I’ve thought a lot about bias, and racism, especially in the past few years—an experience I had in my last semester at Rice really got me thinking about it. It was spring of 2004, and one time at night I was heading to the library to do some studying. On the way there, I passed by a friend of mine from my dorm, a really nice upper-middle-class black guy with glasses and a Cosby-kid look to him, who I said hi to without thinking much of it. Soon after, though, I passed by another black guy who was wearing warm-up pants and sports clothes, and I remember just catching myself thinking, “This guy is probably here on a sports scholarship.” When I caught myself thinking that, I was shocked to have caught myself being so openly racist. It made me think of Mom’s Relief Society friend from
Well, this mental exercise that Scott had us do really bothered me, because it reminded me that despite all the time I’ve spent thinking about this, and despite the many personal examples of amazing and successful black men that I’ve known, the dominant social assumption about black males is still the dominant image that comes first to mind when I think of troubled students. The fact that that is my kneejerk, instinctive mental image, despite all the thinking I try to do to the contrary—that infuriates me. It really infuriates me.
As I thought about it in that session, though, I realized that this rage I was feeling can be channeled. If I want to fight my biases, there is no better way to do so than to let the existence of my biases, and my frustration and rage at their existence, drive my performance as a teacher. Let it fan my flame, let it stoke my passion, let it keep me pushing myself and keep me pushing my kids—not just because I want them to dispel the stereotypes that are held against them, and not just because I want them to prove society wrong. Rather, at its root, because I want them, and need them, to prove me wrong.
As I thought about this, and realized how much I needed them to succeed, not just for them, but for myself, the quote came to mind: "If you have come here to help me, then you are wasting your time…But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together." The next two years will be an amazing chance to do just that.
2 comments:
The quote made me cry. Keep it in your heart.
HONESTY is the bottom line. Honesty with yourself. You've already got that. Nowhere to go but up!
That reminds me of my experiences in my multicultural and ethnic diversity course two years ago (I begged them to let me take it early because I felt like I needed it badly since it was my first semester seeing clients in the center, and I really wanted to be multiculturally sensitive but worried I lacked the framework). I remember feeling frustrated by how steeped I felt in my biases, and ashamed that I'd kept them in the back of my mind and they came out blatently in exercises like the one you did, and I did too. But I don't think there's any other way to become aware of our biases than through these painful experiences--to feel the discomfort, and lean *into* it, not away in denial or avoidance. That seems the only way to a more responsible awareness of what we're bringing into a relationship. Honesty *is* the bottom line, most definitely.
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