my dog might be a racist, but i'm not
the other day i tried to take max to the dogpark. he made a complete ass of himself, as usual. the first dog that came to the park was a boxer, and predictably, max tried to eat his face, and just went crazy. i don't know what his problem is. he's met two boxers in his life that he hasn't hated, and the first one he tried to kill for a solid hour before he gave up and they became friends. and i finally admitted to myself that my dog is a breedist. what's the word for dog breed in italian? razza. what does that really translate to in english? that's right...race. my dog is a dog racist. i'm really pissed about this, because i did everything i could when he was a puppy to get him socialized to all kinds of dogs and people, and he still grew up to hate bully breed dogs and human infants. i lectured him angrily all the way home. he moped.
it got me to thinking about my opinions on race, because they've been through so many revisions during my upbringing. my parents never really talked about it in front of me until i was old enough to not be affected by their opinions, so i only have my own experiences and what my liberal teachers in california taught me. i suppose when i was super little, i was fascinated by other races like all toddlers/kindergarteners are. then around 8 or 9 i got a little bit squeamish. i remember that my church sponsored 100 starving ethiopians to come to america and they went to church with us, and i would always try to get into the communion line ahead of them, because i was scared of eating after them. but even in my childhood stupidity, i never hated the ethiopians. i was friends with their kids, ate their food, visited their houses, and listened to my dad learning to speak ethiopian from them. then i moved to alabama and the huge difference between black people in the south and black people in the rest of the world scared the pants off me. i got scared even more by my own attitute because i never had that problem in california. i had black friends and all kinds of friends and sometimes, never even realized that they were different from me in any way and my teacher specifically taught us about civil rights and how it's stupid to be a racist. so what was my problem in alabama? it was just that the cultural difference was so huge. it was a grand canyon. in the rest of the country, black people and white people just behave like people. but in poor areas, people try to set up differences between themselves by conforming to the worst aspects of their culture. and you can't help but notice race when there's so much hatred and separation around you. my private school didn't have any black students and secretly i felt jipped by it. i never became a racist the entire time i lived there, even with the cultural divide, because i moved to alabama with my own values and my own accent and had vowed that i would fight acclimation any way i could. i got older and stopped being afraid and started volunteering at the housing projects in montgomery 2 nights a week throughout high school and most of junior high. that was a lot of my personal time that i devoted to something i felt was necessary and the best possible use of my talents. my church gave me the opportunity to tutor children and provide them dinner twice a week. i did that out of love. then i went to college and purposefully sought out friends of different nationalities, origins, races than myself, just to end the flood of redneck and drought of culture i'd been stuck in for so long. not that i didn't have white friends. i had a ton of them and even had a token redneck friend. i've always tried to think of racists as regular people too, who have a cultural difference from me, and try to accept them just like i do any other cultural difference (it's a lot harder, but i feel like i've learned how). i worked with black people, respected them more than my white bosses because they were better managers, went out of my way to be friends to them the way i am to all my other friends. all my friends know i'll do anything i can to help you, and that's what i did for them, by helping them out and being friends with their kids.
nowadays, i don't purposely feel the need to seek out friends of other backgrounds than mine. i'm old enough and secure enough in my opinions to just take friends as they come, regardless of race. i suppose i've always felt that way. and whether i admit it or not, i've purposefully sought to work in black schools twice during my adulthood, because i actually care about doing some good in a community that doesn't have a lot of good going on. i may joke about things my students do from time to time, or make light of cultural differences, but during the day at work, i catch myself having forgotten for hours at a time that there's any difference between myself and my students, except for the obvious that i'm an adult, they're children, i'm a teacher, they're students.
you may wonder why i'm spouting off on all this, but it was necessary background info for what i need to say next.
the last day of school before the holidays, i was accused of being a racist. not by my students, who say it all the time because they're children just like i was once, but by one of my bosses. because i said i work at a black school. well, it is a black school. ignoring that fact is being disrespectful of racial issues. accusing me of being a racist for saying it is even more racist. and after my entire cognizant life of railing against racism and welcoming people, regardless of their beliefs, races, general differences from myself into my life, i'm the one who gets called a racist. i'm the one who has to seek legal counsel over it. it makes me feel a little bit racist. and i've never felt that way since i decided on my own personal values. i can't even express my feelings over the rampant unfairness of this. i haven't slept right in weeks and it ruined my christmas break, which was supposed to be a time of rest and a planning period for the new term.
suggest to my little students who i spend all day mothering, supporting, trying to build their confidence, toning down my behavior to be a foil against what their teachers of their own race say to them, and teaching them, that you think i'm a racist. i hope they team up and kick your asses for it. i've developed rapport with them, which was no easy task, and while most of them hate me just like they hate all the other authority figures, i bet they forget half the time that i'm white, just like i forget most of the time that they're black. my students feel a closeness to me, despite my best efforts to not let them get attached, and not be too loving to them. it was my way of trying to survive, and they saw through it to my true feelings in less than a month.
it got me to thinking about my opinions on race, because they've been through so many revisions during my upbringing. my parents never really talked about it in front of me until i was old enough to not be affected by their opinions, so i only have my own experiences and what my liberal teachers in california taught me. i suppose when i was super little, i was fascinated by other races like all toddlers/kindergarteners are. then around 8 or 9 i got a little bit squeamish. i remember that my church sponsored 100 starving ethiopians to come to america and they went to church with us, and i would always try to get into the communion line ahead of them, because i was scared of eating after them. but even in my childhood stupidity, i never hated the ethiopians. i was friends with their kids, ate their food, visited their houses, and listened to my dad learning to speak ethiopian from them. then i moved to alabama and the huge difference between black people in the south and black people in the rest of the world scared the pants off me. i got scared even more by my own attitute because i never had that problem in california. i had black friends and all kinds of friends and sometimes, never even realized that they were different from me in any way and my teacher specifically taught us about civil rights and how it's stupid to be a racist. so what was my problem in alabama? it was just that the cultural difference was so huge. it was a grand canyon. in the rest of the country, black people and white people just behave like people. but in poor areas, people try to set up differences between themselves by conforming to the worst aspects of their culture. and you can't help but notice race when there's so much hatred and separation around you. my private school didn't have any black students and secretly i felt jipped by it. i never became a racist the entire time i lived there, even with the cultural divide, because i moved to alabama with my own values and my own accent and had vowed that i would fight acclimation any way i could. i got older and stopped being afraid and started volunteering at the housing projects in montgomery 2 nights a week throughout high school and most of junior high. that was a lot of my personal time that i devoted to something i felt was necessary and the best possible use of my talents. my church gave me the opportunity to tutor children and provide them dinner twice a week. i did that out of love. then i went to college and purposefully sought out friends of different nationalities, origins, races than myself, just to end the flood of redneck and drought of culture i'd been stuck in for so long. not that i didn't have white friends. i had a ton of them and even had a token redneck friend. i've always tried to think of racists as regular people too, who have a cultural difference from me, and try to accept them just like i do any other cultural difference (it's a lot harder, but i feel like i've learned how). i worked with black people, respected them more than my white bosses because they were better managers, went out of my way to be friends to them the way i am to all my other friends. all my friends know i'll do anything i can to help you, and that's what i did for them, by helping them out and being friends with their kids.
nowadays, i don't purposely feel the need to seek out friends of other backgrounds than mine. i'm old enough and secure enough in my opinions to just take friends as they come, regardless of race. i suppose i've always felt that way. and whether i admit it or not, i've purposefully sought to work in black schools twice during my adulthood, because i actually care about doing some good in a community that doesn't have a lot of good going on. i may joke about things my students do from time to time, or make light of cultural differences, but during the day at work, i catch myself having forgotten for hours at a time that there's any difference between myself and my students, except for the obvious that i'm an adult, they're children, i'm a teacher, they're students.
you may wonder why i'm spouting off on all this, but it was necessary background info for what i need to say next.
the last day of school before the holidays, i was accused of being a racist. not by my students, who say it all the time because they're children just like i was once, but by one of my bosses. because i said i work at a black school. well, it is a black school. ignoring that fact is being disrespectful of racial issues. accusing me of being a racist for saying it is even more racist. and after my entire cognizant life of railing against racism and welcoming people, regardless of their beliefs, races, general differences from myself into my life, i'm the one who gets called a racist. i'm the one who has to seek legal counsel over it. it makes me feel a little bit racist. and i've never felt that way since i decided on my own personal values. i can't even express my feelings over the rampant unfairness of this. i haven't slept right in weeks and it ruined my christmas break, which was supposed to be a time of rest and a planning period for the new term.
suggest to my little students who i spend all day mothering, supporting, trying to build their confidence, toning down my behavior to be a foil against what their teachers of their own race say to them, and teaching them, that you think i'm a racist. i hope they team up and kick your asses for it. i've developed rapport with them, which was no easy task, and while most of them hate me just like they hate all the other authority figures, i bet they forget half the time that i'm white, just like i forget most of the time that they're black. my students feel a closeness to me, despite my best efforts to not let them get attached, and not be too loving to them. it was my way of trying to survive, and they saw through it to my true feelings in less than a month.