Race/Racism

Whose America

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / 1 Comment

I only watched a few minutes of Romney’s speech. Not because I didn’t want to, but I’m currently on a family vacation and was busy playing yatzee with my mom and son (that makes it sound like I’m super old and boring–but it was fun). So I re-watched some this am on C-Span. I am a social liberal and a democrat. But, I think it is important to hear from everyone. I think it is important to be a critical consumer and not just be ruled by my party affiliation, but by the facts/issues.

All of this is to really say, I started to listen to Mitt’s speech with an open-mind. That didn’t last long.

Four years ago, I know that many Americans felt a fresh excitement about the possibilities of a new president. That president was not the choice of our party but Americans always come together after elections. We are a good and generous people who are united by so much more than what divides us.

Really? This begs the question-what America is he talking about? America couldn’t be more divided. Does he not know about the Tea Party? Or the Birthers? I am 41 and pay pretty close attention to the rhetoric from both parties–but the rhetoric from the right had been anything but harmonious. the left isn’t innocent–but for the past 4-years the anti-Obama rhetoric has been atrocious.

When that hard fought election was over, when the yard signs came down and the television commercials finally came off the air, Americans were eager to go back to work, to live our lives the way Americans always have – optimistic and positive and confident in the future.

What America does he refer to? Certainly not the on where members of the military plot against their commander-in-chief. Where the president’s birth is constantly under scrutiny. Where the financial crisis, caused by Wall Street and de-regulation, is blamed on the current President. The rhetoric of the right has been anything but optimistic. The right has been nothing if not negative over the past four years. President Obama was certainly not given the benefit of any tiny bit of support from the right. There are too many examples of this and this isn’t what bothered me the most–it just reinforced that Romney is either out of touch or doesn’t understand what coming together means. Rubio commented on the amount of golf President Obama has played and actually called him a “bad President.” Yep we have totally come together.

That very optimism is uniquely American.

It is what brought us to America. We are a nation of immigrants. We are the children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the ones who wanted a better life, the driven ones, the ones who woke up at night hearing that voice telling them that life in that place called America could be better.

“What brought us to America”–really? Who? Oh yeah–wealthy white people. That’s right it’s the white people. This bothers me, not just as the mother of black children, but as an American who truly believes that ALL people are equal, not just those who look like those who rode on a boat, by choice, to America. What about those brought in the cargo holds of boats? Those who truly build much of America? What about those who aren’t rich?

This really really bothered me. Words mean something. What someone says is so important. I might be accused of reading between the lines or reading too much into these simple words. But I ask that you read these words carefully. These words clearly illustrate who matters to the GOP and it isn’t those who were brought to America in chains. It isn’t those who challenge the patriarchal structure in place. It isn’t those who demand true equality. He also threw the Cubans into this group (he’s hoping Rubio helps get him some of the Hispanic vote)–not the Mexicans. If you brave the oceans between Cuba and America to seek a better life–great, we welcome you. If you sneak across the border–tough shit, you are unwelcome and here to take our jobs and resources.

They came not just in pursuit of the riches of this world but for the richness of this life.

Freedom.

Freedom of religion.

Freedom to speak their mind.

Freedom to build a life.

And yes, freedom to build a business. With their own hands.

This is the essence of the American experience.

Freedom of religion? Yep. Especially, if you area Muslim. I’m sure they feel totally free. Yep. Freedom to build a life. Those with chronic illness like, Erin who the Affordable Care Act has helped, I’m sure feel free knowing Romney and the right want to take that away without hearing (or caring) about their stories, their realities. Freedom to build a life–so many African American child are relegated to failing urban education systems that ensures to keep their unemployment rate in double digits in our urban centers. Yep-Freedom.

So, I ask–What America does Romney and the GOP represent and live in? Because it isn’t in mine.

I Didn’t Understand Then But Do Now

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / 2 Comments

Dear Justin,

I am sorry it took the shooting of Trayvon Martin for me to understand what you said all those years ago.  I am sorry I didn’t see your wisdom of experience.  I was too naive to understand.  I was too stuck in my own world of white privilege to really hear you.  And for that I am sorry.  You asked a question that seemed absurd to me in 2006, before I brought my Ethiopian son home.  We were in class and I remember the moment vividly.  I was telling the class about our impending adoption of a child from Ethiopia.  We had just received our referral and knew we were going to have a son.

The class was asking questions and then you asked me “who is going to teach him how to be black.”  At that moment, that questions seemed ridiculous.  I turned it into a  teachable moment, to discuss what it really meant to be black (ridiculously, white–I understand that now).  I challenged you in your question.  I talked about how my son’s world would be one of middle class suburbia and private schools.  Just thinking back on this moment, I am filled with shame.  I thought I was your ally.  I thought I understood what your live was like to some extent.  But I looked at your life through my own lens of privilege.

I was naive to think that my privilege would somehow make my son’s skin color less noticeable.  That some how the fact that we are upper-middle class affords him the ability to be both black and privileged.

I was so wrong.  I wish I had really heard your question.  I wish I had listened instead of trying to teach from my perch of privilege.  How foolish I was.  How naive I was.  How wrong I was.  How sorry I am that I trivialized your experience and what it means to be black.  That it even meant something at all to be black. I could have learned so much.

************************************************

I spent  years working in urban schools with a majority black student population, before I left teaching in 2006 to stay home.  I was “enlightened.”  I will admit I uttered the words “I don’t see color, I see students.”  I can also now admit that that statement is an utter lie.  Of course, I saw skin color; the color just didn’t matter to me.  And it should matter.  But I can’t live with my head in the sand and pretend it doesn’t matter.  Because now, as the mother of two black children, it matters immensely.

It mattered when he was three and we were walking to the park in our 95% white neighborhood and he asked “mom will the other kids think I am different because my skin is brown?”  It mattered when he was watching a play at a community theater with a group of friends –who were all white–and he was the only one told to be quiet for talking.  It will matter when he asks a white girl out and her parents forbid it.  It will matter when he forgets his house key and climbs through the front window.  It will matter.

The death of Trayvon Martin is a tragedy.  He should still be alive.  His parents should still have him to scold, guide and love.  The death of Trayvon Martin is a wake-up call.  The murder of Trayvon Martin has shaken me to the core.  Trayvon is my son.  My son is too young to know what happened to Trayvon.  He is only 5.  But he can see injustice in being singled out to be quiet when it other friends are doing the same thing he is.

I’ll never understand what it is like to be black.  But I have to mine all the information I can, so that my son can know what it means to be black in our bigoted and prejudicial society.  How to be black in a world that will look at him in his teen and young-adult years and see danger and suspicion.

Jesse Washington wrote:

As I explained it, the Code goes like this:

Always pay close attention to your surroundings, son, especially if you are in an affluent neighborhood where black folks are few. Understand that even though you are not a criminal, some people might assume you are, especially if you are wearing certain clothes.

Never argue with police, but protect your dignity and take pride in humility. When confronted by someone with a badge or a gun, do not flee, fight, or put your hands anywhere other than up.

Please don’t assume, son, that all white people view you as a threat. America is better than that. Suspicion and bitterness can imprison you. But as a black male, you must go above and beyond to show strangers what type of person you really are.

It is my responsibility as a white parent of two black children, to teach them what their skin color means and how it might effect their lives.  I have to push aside my privilege and really look at what happens in our world. I have to admit that my privilege does not transfer to my children.

I am so sorry that it took another mother losing a child for me to fully understand that question Justin asked nearly 6 years ago.  I have an answer now–Who is going to teach my son to be black?  Well, I have to.  I. Have. To.  I have saved nearly every piece of writing on Trayvon Martin, by those of color who articulate, however painful it might be, what it means to be a black man in America.  It might be my most important role. It might help my son navigate the world.

 

 

My Worst Nightmare

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / 2 Comments

Trayvon Martin‘s story could one day be my son’s story.  Like Trayvon, my son is black.  Right now it doesn’t affect his life much–but one day (in 11 years) he’ll be a 17-year-old black man walking the streets in a predominately white neighborhood.  By virtue of his skin color, he will be suspicious.  I thought I had come to grips with this.  I thought I was prepared.

I am not prepared for the possibility that my son could be the victim of this type of crime.  Trayvon did nothing wrong.  The man who shot him wanted to shoot him.  The man who shot him hunted him down.  The man who killed him, felt that he was justified.  That is what scares me the most.  What happens when Noah forgets his key and climbs through the front window our house in our mostly white neighborhood?  I haven’t forgotten about what happened to Henry Gates at his own home in Cambridge.

I struggle for the words to express my fears for my son.  You think the world is different and has changed, when in reality that is something we tell ourselves to feel better.  We live in a pretty isolated world.  My kids go to private school with people who love them and see them as people.  They have family and friends who love them.  But events like this break the illusion.  Events like this make me question how we allow things like this to happen. Events like this make me realize that race matters; perhaps even more now than previously.  Race matters more now, because we have become complacent.  Race matters because so many people think it doesn’t.  It matters to Trayvon and his family.  It matter to the man who shot and killed Trayvon simply because he was black and perceived to not belong.

It is time that all of us stood for justice.  This isn’t just an issue for the black community to take a stand on.  This is an issue for all of us to take a stand on.  By doing nothing, by not acting we send the message that Trayvon doesn’t matter.  By doing nothing, by not acting we say to all other black males–you deserve what you get.  That is not a message I will send to my son.  That is not a message I will send to someone else’s son.  Everyone matters.  And it is time we stand up and shout “Being Black doesn’t make someone guilty, suspicious or dangerous.”

I live with immense privilege.  I accept that privilege, but with it comes a responsibility.  My son and daughter enjoy some of the privilege that I have.  But as soon as they are old enough to be out on their own–the privilege disappears.  Because of this, I cannot afford to be complacent.  I cannot afford to turn a blind-eye when injustice happens.  I cannot afford to let my children think that their skin color doesn’t matter.  Because it does to so many people.  Because it will be the first thing people judge them by.  Because it will lead to my son and daughter being followed through the store as they shop with friends.  It will lead to other parents not wanting their child to date mine.  It will lead to my son being pulled over as he leaves a friends house on a Friday night.

We can’t stand by and allow it to be okay.  We have to be aware of our own bias and actively fight against it.

Today, I stand in solidarity with Trayvon Martin’s family. Today, I stand with my son.

 

Urban Schools And Slavery

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / 1 Comment

Who knew they had many of the same racial ideals embedded in their systemic structure–keeping people in their appropriate place.

Now before you start getting mad at me, education and urban education are my passion and my daily work.  All of my teaching has happened in urban schools with a majority black population.  My kids are black.  But Jada Williams has said what I have been saying, so honestly, that it breaks my heart to be right.  I cried as I heard her speak of how “teachers actions speak volumes”

I am tired of the achievement gap being about the students.  I am tired of teachers who don’t teach kids.  I am tired of administrators who don’t know what teachers are doing in their classrooms.  I will always be a teacher at heart.  I believe teaching is the most noble and most important profession. I also know it is one of the hardest (it comes in a close second to parenting toddles and teenagers). I am disheartened when I hear the first year teachers I teach (TFA teachers) talk about how students can’t do x or y or z.  I ask “What gives you the right or authority to decide what a student can and cannot do?”

I am not looking to bash teachers.  I love and respect teachers.  I am tired of teachers (some not all–but too many) so clearly not doing their jobs (especially in urban schools). I am tired of administrators who allow teachers to not do their jobs.  Jada’s teacher was offended by her essay and made it impossible for Jada to stay at her school and at her next school. You can read the rest of the story here and here.  Go Read It (then come back…also, just a note–I do not share the same political views that the Frederick Douglass Foundation of NY does–but they have the story).

This story makes me sick. This story epitomizes everything that is wrong with our educational system and our society.  It also highlights that the issues are systemic.  Jada should be applauded for her voice and apologized to for 8 years of being failed by the adults in her schools.  She and every student in America deserves better.  Every. Student. Yes even the poor and minority ones.  EVERY. STUDENT.

It is the little things that we do that send the loudest messages. Messages our students internalize about us and themselves.   Jada (and generations of other minority students) has taken in the rhetoric that she and all black students are deemed “unteachable.”  That just floors me. That makes me sad.  Skin color has no link to IQ or academic potential. Kids are smart and intuitive.  Just listen to Jada read her essay–how can you argue that she can’t learn or is unteachable?  Kids who are called unteachable are usually called that by teachers who can’t and don’t teach.

Students will internalize whatever message gets sent.

Teachers who show movies every day send the message “I don’t think you deserve an education or my time.”  Administrators who allow students to slack off send the message “I don’t think you will amount to anything.”  Student who misbehave in class are sending the message “Your lessons are boring and you aren’t teaching or engaging me.”

Students want to learn.  Students want to be successful.  But students know when teachers don’t want them to be or even worse, don’t care if they are successful.  If you are a teacher–what message do you send to your students?  All of your students.  Think about it.  A teacher is the most important indicator of student success.  So, do everyone a favor–TEACH or get out.  Because Jada and every (especially minority) child in this country, mine included, deserve more.  They deserve everything.

 

Loving

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / 2 Comments

I am not naive.  I know that our country has a horrendous past regarding the treatment of those the white establish deem as other.  Our differences use to be rather easy to determine–White was good–everything else was bad.  Pretty simple right.  Well what happens when whites don’t get the memo or choose not to drink the kool-aid?  It throws the establishment off balance and the results are often catastrophic.

Meet the Lovings:

All they did was love each other in 1958 Virginia.  They showed their love by getting married.  Less than 2 months after their marriage they were arrested and sentenced to 1-year in jail.  Their sentence was suspended if they would leave Virginia–for good.

They came to visit family for Easter and were again arrested.  This was 1958.  Both of my parents were alive.  There were 24 states that had miscegenation laws at that time.  They just wanted to love each other, raise their 3 children and be around family.

This documentary hurt me deeply.  It reminded me that while my children (who are black) don’t have to deal with this level of racism in their daily life, this level of racism still exists.  The people who spoke out in favor of miscegenation are still alive.  Their children to whom they pass on their beliefs are still alive.  Our world still favors white and rich and the other has many more obstacles.

I know that these laws existed and I know that they were horrible.  But I never thought about the real-life implications of the laws.  But this documentary really brings to life the implications of these laws and the real people whose beliefs fueled these laws.  That is what really get me.  That people really thought they needed to protect the “purity of the races.”  That is such a crap reason.  I am pretty sure the whites who supported these laws were only worried about the “purity of their own race.”

The thing that struck me and by struck I mean scared the shit out of and pissed me off the most is that in 1967 (while the Loving V. Virginia case was moving through the courts on it’s eventual way to the Supreme Court) a federal judge said “God created separate races on the separate continents to ensure that the races did not mix.”  This was espoused by a federal judge who was charged with upholding the law.  What does God have to do with this?  Isn’t there a separation of church and state?

This movie forced me to think about and consider the implications that these thoughts and feelings have on me and my children.  I am lucky that my kids are raised in an environment where they are accepted for who they are as people and not because their skin is beautifully brown.  Skin color is really no different than hair color or eye color.  It is the only thing we can’t change about us, but it is just a thing.  I cut off all of Noah’s beautiful curls–he is still the same kid.

Richard Loving said it best.  When their ACLU lawyers asked him if there was anything that he wanted them to tell the court, Richard simply replied–“Tell them I love my wife.”

It is time that the state and people’s own beliefs stopped deciding who can love whom and let everyone “love their husband/wife.”

The supreme court in a 9-0 decision, in 1967, stated:

Marriage is one of the “basic civil rights of man,” fundamental to our very existence and survival…. To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State’s citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discrimination. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.

I would like to see the phrase sexual orientation added to this.  It’s time we stop separating groups and bring us all together.