I learn far from my students than I could ever teach them.

Today, several of my white students posted comments about how we need to confront our own racism if things are ever going to get any better.

Several of my black students posted comments about their concerns of being “lumped” in with other groups based just on skin color.

It makes me so sad that even has to be a thought in their minds.  That was something that should have been over with forty years ago.  After all, look at how far we’ve come.  We can say “We have a black President.”

But I wonder if things have just changed on the surface.

There’s a song from Avenue Q, the musical  “Everybody’s a Little Racist.”  It’s Horatian satire… gentle, teasing… we laugh and say “Yes, that’s true.”

But does it lead to bigger things?

When I’m introducing literature with racism issues as central themes, I often start with a personal anecdote:

I grew up in lily white America.  Chicago northern suburbs and  southern New Jersey are not known for their diversity.  When we moved to Houston, we moved to the Champions Forest area where Mormons were about as “ethnic” as we got.

I went to school at Baylor.  I had one black girl in my dorm.  One.

Then, I had my first teaching job in New Caney, Texas. New Caney… right there on the border of being in east Texas.  Klan members still paraded across the bridge just miles away in Splendora.  This was 1994 in America, and I’m not joking.

My first year there I had ONE black student.  He’s amazing.  He’s still a Facebook friend.  When he was in class, he handled an overtly racist student with such amazing grace.  After a minor dispute over who was sitting in whose desk, the white student called him the “n” word… and the amount of class my black student showed…

But that’s neither here nor there.  This is my story of MY racism.

I had almost entirely all white students, no Hispanic for the first year I taught.(I probably had about twenty “bad” white kids.)

By the second year, it was still almost all white, but I had two Hispanic boys.

These boys were both terrible!   They were loud.  They were rude.  They were disrespectful.  I got absolutely no help from their parents.  It was horrible. (I probably had about twenty bad white students, too)

The next year, I had even MORE Hispanic students… they were EXACTLY like the two awful boys from the year before.  I couldn’t control any of them.  There were about ten of them now.  Every one of them was horrible.  (I probably had about twenty bad white students, too)

The next year I saw the surnames on my rosters before my year even began.  All those Hispanic surnames.  It was going to be an AWFUL year.

Then, first period came around.  I had two Hispanic kids in that class.  Lo and behold, they were terrible.  (I probably had about five bad white students, too).

The next class period, however, something happened.  I had Hispanic students that period, too.  But they were really good kids.  “Hm,”  I thought to myself “I wonder why they’re so good?  That’s weird.  I’m not used to Hispanic kids behaving themselves.”

I would like to say that I realized the error of my ways right then… but I didn’t.  I didn’t realize it until the NEXT year when I had even more Hispanic students and was surprised by how many of them behaved as well as they did.

That’s the moment.  I remember stopping dead in my tracks.

Me… bleeding heart, champion for the underdog, activist, me….  I was a racist.

Kids are KIDS… not a race… Yes, there are good ones… and there are bad ones (or those who need a little help controlling themselves, anyway)… but it has NOTHING… and I mean NOTHING to do with skin color.

I’d also like to say I’m cured.  I’d especially like to say I’m cured because I now teach in a school where I’m the minority… and I don’t even notice their color in my classroom…

…and that’s partly true…

…but I do notice their color in the hallway.

I do notice their color when they’re in large groups… and they’re loud, and they’re rowdy, and they’re interacting in a way that’s foreign to me.  They dress differently than I would choose to dress.  They make me nervous and uncomfortable… even though they haven’t done a single thing to warrant that reaction from me.

When I was in Houston, I moved from an apartment because the area was going “downhill.”

You know what that really meant to me?

More black people moved into my apartment complex.

I’m embarrassed to type those words.  But, see, I was uncomfortable. The new residents stood outside a lot.  They were loud.  They would get quiet and stare at me as I walked past.  I no longer felt safe.

I had no reason except what I believed from watching the news… what I learned to fear.

I had no reason except my own racism.

I have had my car broken into… saw the guy do it.  He was white.  I have been assaulted.  He was white.  Yet, I was scared because there were people different than me living near me.

I feel extremely guilty for my own racism.  I truly try to combat it at all times.

I listen to my black students and my black friends when they explain to me what their lives are like based solely on the color of the skin with which they were born.  I remember that my racism is MY fault.  It is something I have chosen to learn… and am working to unlearn.

I think my students are right… that it is important for us to take a deep, true hard look at ourselves and what we think and what we feel.

I think maybe if we ALL did that would get us a little further than the last 40 years has.