Race/Racism

Making My Job As A Parent Harder (My 1000th Post)

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / 2 Comments

Seems fitting that my 1000th post is a topic that is central to this blog–parenting.

So, Kelly pointed the article “If I Was a Poor Black Kid” out on Facebook yesterday and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it and the ridiculous premise that technology will fix all that ails children who are poor (because there are even more white ones who are) and children of color.  Maybe I am summarizes the article a bit too much.

While my kids are not poor, they are black.  And even though they are not poor, we live in a city where most people assume that any black kid/family is poor.  This is certainly not the case, but this article brought home for me the general assumption that they are.  And it came at an interesting time, because I just had to bite my tongue at an even the other day when an upper middle class mom and I were talking about her son’s new school.  Her son and Noah had been in the same class for preschool and for kindergarten they decided to try their local public school district because the district was the reason they bought their house, etc.  I asked how it was going and she was talking about how amazed she was at how fast the curriculum went and she felt that he couldn’t miss even a few days at school.  She went onto explain “well about 20% of the kids in the school and in his class are bussed in from the city and you know inner city kids they don’t come with the foundation for school so they have to work extra hard to catch up and I think the teachers have to make sure the inner city kids get caught up…..” and I stopped listening because I wanted to really challenge her on her racist/privileged outlook.

I simply pointed out it wasn’t to catch up inner city kids but to make sure that those kids are ready for the standardized testing that is coming their way.

But my point is that it is these exact beliefs that keep me from putting my kids in public school (all long with all the focus on testing and lack of focus on the whole child).  We live in a city and surrounding county where we have a desegregation program–where black kids from the city can be transferred to schools in the county who participate in the program.  I couldn’t put my kids in a school where they would be seen and assumed to be “poor” kids from the city because I know the expectations that teachers have for those kids.  I just couldn’t have that for my kids.  What is ironic is it my own privilege that allows me to know what these teacher often think of these “poor” kids from the city who spend over 2 hours a day on a bus in an attempt to level the playing field–when in reality they are often not allowed to play the same game.  In this same way, my kids become privileged.  Yet I have to be hyper aware of the messages they receive as they move in my world of privilege because there are plenty of people who won’t see past their skin color.

 

The Power Of Social Media

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / 2 Comments

Sometimes all you have to do is ask.  Last year around this time Pottery Barn Kids released their holiday catalog and there was something many of us with kids of color noticed about the stockings.  All of the faces were white.  I know I wanted to buy my daughter a stocking but there were no girls that looked even remotely like her.  In a world where most of the images of beauty reflected back are those of white skin and often blond hair, I don’t want my daughter to think that she is not normal or acceptable.  I want her to have a positive image of her skin.  I also want this for Noah, even though he seems less aware or at least pays less attention to it than Zoë does.

Last year, many of us descended upon the Pottery Barn Kids Facebook page and demanded dark skin stocking for our children of color.  Yes, many of us are white, middle-class, parents of adopted children.  But I don’t think that matters.  What mattered was that we wanted our children to see themselves reflected back in a product.  I notice so often what kinds of images and messages are sent to kids and also notice that there are few non-white images for my children to identify with and draw from.

I have to say I was really happy today to look at the stockings and see these:

I will admit these aren’t perfect. The hair is a little straight for my liking–I’d like to see some curls in the elf’s hair and the angel’s hair.  But this is a huge step forward.  The color is not exactly right and is still a little light, but it is dark and it is progress.  I’ can’t wait to buy mine for the kids.  They will love them.

We Can’t Change History

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / Leave a comment

No matter how much we want to erase the injustices and horrors of the past, we can’t.  Changing something on the surface does not change what lies below.  I am enraged by the audacity of Alan Gribben, a Twain scholar, to think that the book needs to be “cleansed” of it’s depiction of American racism.  Gribben argues (as noted on many a news sites) that the N-word (sorry, I can’t write it–personal feelings, but not being able to personally say it or write it did not keep me from reading Huck Finn) keeps the book from being enjoyed more.  So lets make it all nice and pretty.  I’m not a Twain scholar, but I do have a BA and MA in English and have studies more than my fair share of American Literature.  I’m pretty confident that if Twain had wanted to use the word “slave” instead of the “n-word” that he would have.  I am appalled that someone has the hubris to think that they can determine what Twain (or any other author for that matter) intended.  I also find it suspect that Gribben is white and that no one of prominence (academic or otherwise) who is African American has called for the removal of the word.

Erasing this word, forever changes the book and it’s powerful impact on Americans and our history.  This decision/move can really be used to sum up the problems that exist in this country around issues of race, privilege and oppression.  Until we are able to confront racism and privilege (Gribben is operating from a significantly privileged position), we cannot move forward and begin to break down the barriers and institution practices that exist to privilege on group over another.  This white-washing of history is done out of a need to self-preserve the status quo and perpetuate the idea that if we don’t talk about race or racism–it doesn’t actually exist.  The only (well, one of many) problems with this is that covering up or prettying up history only keeps racism alive and erases the experiences of groups that were once and still are marginalized and under-served.

Gribben misses the mark on this one.  What should happen is that Huck Finn should be taught more as it and we should begin to try to have some serious conversations about race.  I abhor the N-word.  Because I understand the history of that word and what it once stood (can still stand) for.  I have taught Huck Finn at most African American high schools and the conversations are always rich.  I never make the students read the work–it’s not about saying it but about addressing the issues that the use itself raises both historically and currently. It offers an interesting juxtaposition of current use vs. historical use.

I will certainly not buy this edition and when my children are old enough they will read the original un-cleansed version.  If history is ignored it is bound to be repeated.

Some Things I Just Can’t Get Past

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / 1 Comment

I have tried not to spend to much time lamenting about the urban educational system and suburbia’s perceptions of those who they decided to label as urban.  It is something that really upsets, angers and bothers me to the core.  I know I posted a while ago about stereotypes in education and how the accepted stereotypes of minority students determines the substandard education they are give in within an affluent school district.  Something really must be wrong with an educational system if black and Latino and native American kids don’t score any better on standardized tests in these affluent districts than they do in the miserably failing urban schools.  In some cases the minority kids in urban schools score better than those in suburban districts.

When I broach this subject with those in and even outside of education–what I so often get spit back in defense of our educational system is this:

“Well are they residents (of these richer districts)?”

“There is a lot of low income housing around those schools.”

“Most of our behavior problems are from deseg students (kids bussed in from the city)”

“Kids can’t learn if they don’t have all of there basic needs met”

“If mom and dad aren’t educated their kid are going to have a harder time”

These comments make me want to scream and they totally make my argument for me.  Do we really think/believe/accept that all blacks are poor?  In reality 24.7% of blacks live below the poverty line (for those reporting only a single race category to the census)  That is a high percentage but considering blacks make up only 13% of the overall population–approximately 38.4 million and then based on the percentage living below the poverty line there are roughly 9.6 million blacks living in poverty (as defined by the government–I fully accept and understand there are many more who do not fit the poverty numbers but are in essence pretty poor).  Compared with whites–non-hispanic who still make up 66% of the population–approximately 201 million whites non-hispanic and with 8.9% in poverty that makes 17.9 millions whites in poverty.

This means as teacher we are nearly as likely to have a poor white student as we are a poor black student (or close to just as likely–there is a slightly higher chance in urban areas that your black students are going to be poorer but not as much in the suburban areas.)  I taught in a suburban black community and at least half of my students were from middle class families and some of them from upper middle class families. Many of their parents were educated and held degree or in other cases multiple degrees.  But the assumption was often the same–before poor kids can learn they need their needs met, etc.  This is so damaging to students.  Skin color is not the same as socio-economic status.  I am tired of us making excuses for the failures we have let happen when it comes to our educational system.  I think the same can be said for health care. Those who are no affected–rich/white–are quick to point out that it isn’t the system that is failing but the people.

That is so often the argument in education.  I am sick just thinking about the amount of time we spend blaming students for the inability to learn or their lack of desire or interest.  I am tired of the excuse we make for not doing our job to the best of our ability.  I will admit here that I have been guilty of that–I think it is easier at the high school level to write kids off–especially those who have been beaten so badly by the system that they have completely lost hope.  But it is our job as teachers to give them that hope back.  We have to stop with the excuses.  We have to challenge the stereotypes that we have allowed to determine the type of education we were given access to.  We must stand up for change.  The status quo just cannot be allowed to remain the same.  Rhetoric cannot replace action.

Damnit, I Thought I Had More Time

/ Dawn Kasal-Finley / 10 Comments

before I had to deal with one of the toughest questions I imagine will come my way.  We were on our way to the park yesterday and we talked about playing with the other kids and this is what my 3-year-old (not every 3 1/2 yet) asked–“Mom, will the other kids think I am different because my skin is brown?”  This comes on the heels of this comment the night before–“Mom, I want to be white like you.”

Both of these comments from my son who is only 40-months-old, literally broke my heart.  I just kept thinking, he is too young to deal with these issues yet.  I am not ready for him to be dealing with these issues.  There is nothing like feeling you are prepared and then finding out that you brought a knife to a gun fight.

We talked about being different and being the same and that there are lots of ways that we are different and lots of ways that we are the same.  We talked about how he was born in Ethiopia and that the amazing people in Ethiopia all have shades of brown skin and how his sister is also brown but a lighter brown and how his skin color is a way to always feel connected to Ethiopia and the woman that gave birth to  him and land that gave birth to all of us.

I asked him why he asked if he was different or if kids would think he was different?  Well, his best friend who will be 3 next month is a very very white little girl and they run around together all the time-mostly in as few clothes as possible and it is easy for him to see the difference in pictures of them.  I asked him how it made him feel to be different and when he sad said I asked him why.  He wants to be just like his friends.  So, I asked him if he was sad that Dayton didn’t have a penis?  I know a weird question, but when you are dealing with such complex issues with a kid who can only really see the surface–I needed something.  He laughed and said “No, she’s a girl.  Girls don’t have penises.”  We talked a little more about it and pointed out as many differences as we could about all of us and about how it is important to have people be different.

I think it went well, but it makes me realize how viciously I want to protect him from everything and how I can’t and most importantly how I don’t and can’t understand how he feels being a brown kid in a mostly white world.

So, Internets–give me your words of wisdom and experience.  Let’s help each other out.