This time of year is my favorite time of year. I love the colors, the crispness, the pumpkins, the sweaters, the bonfires...
Besides that, it holds my wedding anniversary (which is not a coincidence, since I was bound and determined to have a Fall wedding). Twelve years, Scott Gibson Arthur. Tomorrow, on the 30th, we will have made it to A DOZEN (is the designated gift Eggs? Donuts?)!
And, starting nine years ago, it became a season of a different type of emotion. We celebrate the change of season, we celebrate our union as a couple, and...
We honor and remember our baby boy, Duncan, who passed away on October 26 2007.
We've done a variety of things over the years to make this day significant (this year, we spent it flying home from San Diego!!). But one thing I always do is reread the following entry from that time period. It's called "New Kind of Normal" and I still don't think there's any better description for what the weeks, months, and now years since Duncan's death have been like for me.
To read that entry, click
here
Our adventure started out with lots of big ole bumps and dips and I-want-to-go-backs. And has evolved into a place to chronicle it all: the sweet, the contemplative, the painful, and the please-say-I'm-not-alone...Welcome. And please say I'm not alone.
Saturday, October 29, 2016
Monday, October 24, 2016
If you have ADHD, read this,
It just plain super-sucks to live inside a being unoccupied by a functioning brain.
This is what it feels like:
The doorbell rings and you go into full-on panic about what appointment you forgot. By the time you get to the door you are cursing yourself AND your pits are sweating profusely. Thank GOD it's just an annoying walking political groupie. Then, while you are still getting your heart regulated and not listening to ALL THOSE WORDS, he freaking has the nerve to give you a pop quiz... Except you don't know it until he paused expectantly, waiting for an answer. You go with a safe bet: "The economy?"
You wake up every morning truly not knowing what to do with yourself... From the routine obvious (getting yourself and your kids ready to leave the house) to what to do with open, free down time (so many choices!!!). Inside my not-functioning brain: do I shower first, or brush my teeth first? Think. Think. Think. This didn't seem so hard before! What do I usually do? Wait. What am I going to do when the kids finish their morning show? I'll need to pounce into breakfast duty... But what if that interrupts me from deciding whether to shower or brush my teeth first? Then that question will HANG IN THE BALANCE... And, meanwhile, Campbell might wake up any minute so there goes personal hygiene altogether. What's that? You'd like fuckimg eggs for breakfast? A) I forgot eggs when I had them WRITTEN ON MY LIST at the grocery yesterday, b) I don't trust myself to cook anything that uses anything that needs turning off, and c) Campbell just woke up. You're on you're own.
You keep hearing a still small voice saying that you need rest, yes, rest, that's what you need. That's what will make your functioning brain return to inhabiting your body. So you commit to it like ITS YOUR JOB. You politely say no to things you'd normally say yes to, all the while not liking the way this comes off since you generally like socializing and don't want to be written off as inconsistently flighty... But you remember that not everyone needs to know about or hear your ADHD struggles so you commit to using words like, "Just in an overwhelmed place right now and pairing back temporarily" which is true. But really you JUST PLAIN FEEL LIKE A CRAZY, IRRESPONSBLE, INCOMPETENT, IDIOT who gets ovwhelmed by brushing her teeth or completing a sentence. That's what you really want to say. But you don't to the outer ring. To your husband and your inner ring, you start to share what you want to say, but you can't even get THAT out. But they know. Because this has happened before. And they know what you need: to be handled very tenderly while you feel so unsettled, confused, and moronic. So you now have said no enough to have the space to rest, so you can heal that "overwhelmed" place you're in. But GUESS WHAT? Since almost every single solitary thing there is to do in this life - including resting - involves your brain, it's hard to find respite in rest. You try going to the coffee shop - BUT ALL THOSE SENSES ARE OVERSTIMULATING. You try reading, but - seriously - the words don't make sense. Forget about even glancing at your phone or scrolling through Facebook: information, information, information. Where to file it? What to do with it? The best things, you find, are headphones with music, meditation, and napping. And even though you feel a bit like a mental patient fighting for her sanity (since nobody else seems to find READING stressful), you know you need it. You try to tell yourself it's temporary and the fog will lift and rest won't be a full time job.
You go to book club because you are having a somewhat clear afternoon leading up to it. You pride yourself in being authentic and real. And it feels somewhat shitty to have to weigh whether your cognitive faculties are in tact enough to go, when really you know you ought to be ok with yourself enough to go-and-be-stupid and everyone-else-can-just-deal. But part of ADHD is not being able to pluck the right words from the sea of them (did you ever contemplate HOW MANY there are???). You've got a bunch to express, and the modality to express it... And yet both your filter is not trustworthy (imagine turrets, except with ideas) AND your words are all wrong, going off on these paths you didn't want them to go on... So that, GUESS WHAT!!? Your attempts at being real and authentic only lead you to misrepresent yourself, which feels the opposite of real and authentic.
Your sense of humor... where'd it go? Turns out you need your brain to be funny too. And your sense of humor is something you love about yourself!! But when you try to be sarcastic or witty or cheeky during this period of time, it comes off at best as not funny and at worst at reaching and trying way too hard and likely both. Your timing is all off and your word choice is messed up and - furthermore - you can't figure out what IS funny. And besides that, funny tequires creative juices and when your using up every last drop of juiciness in you just to manage yourself at the basic level, there's no moisture left over for creative. Worst of all, you lose your ability to laugh at yourself - because nothing about how you feel inside is funny. It's scary. Scary takes the zing right out of funny. There's no room for it.
You've instilled in your children the importance of responsibility and harp on them to manage their belongings. And you're wandering around the house every moment that you are awake, hollering, "where is my fucking phone (but really- fill in the blank)?" Except, for the kids' sake, that's only what the inside voice says. The outside one is silent while you suffer with the shame of your hypocrisy as you discombobulatedly race around mindless and crazed when you could just use the "find my phone" feature on the iPad sitting right in front of you. And when you can't follow the basic guidelines you've set for your children over and over again, feeling like a child yourself, you wonder "how the hell am I equipped enough to parent these darlings?" And the insecurity of that gets to feeling REALLY REAL.
And time. A complete quandary. While you struggle with it even in clear times, when the ADHD fog is there, it is an entity that eludes you. You take turns obsessing over it, setting timers, back planning to consider it, making pick up and drop off and practice start times and end time as rigid and unforgiving as ever and ignoring it altogether, being sloppy with it and facing the consequences ashamedly. How to figure out just how important time is? How much respect to assign to it? You become the ultimate philosopher on all the things you-can't-figure-out, and setting your mind out to solve such unsolvable nonsense means it's even more absent for the things right in front of you you already feel ill-equipped to handle.
And since you can't size up which mistakes are the normal ones - the ones that everyone makes - and which ones are the ones that are annoyingly specific to you and your brain chemistry, you assume that everything you do wrong is uniquely your problem... and then you're on a little shame island.
And then you have a night here and there where you drink. Alcohol. And when you are feeling the affects, everything gets better. Not because alcohol makes you do better cognitively, but because you don't have to be so damn concerned with your state. You are probably behaving just as frazzled as your sober ADHD self, but you simply don't give a shit. And you think about the people who are mentally ill, some with ADHD perhaps, who are roaming the streets homeless or lost or in debt or running from the police all while abusing substances and you think I GET IT. You get why one would want to feel this medicated way more often, and here You are with a family who loves you, friends who care about you, money to pay the bills and more, and a life that is full and whole and wonderful. This doesn't make you feel guilty for being not-homeless. And it doesn't make you feel guilty for going through internal battles when so much goodness and so many blessings are right at your feet. Mostly, it makes you super-sucked into the intimate awareness of the hardness of life. If you feel like your problems are big and get scared by the wonderfulness of the aid of alcohol during these episodes, life for these folks must be un-freakin-bearable.
And then your husband (probably because he got freaked when you confessed the drinking thing) says, "why don't you try Ritalin again?" You tried it back when you went bat-shit-crazy after Campbell's birth and felt the benefits were inconsistent and, besides that, you were not liking having to be on TWO medications since lexipro was prescribed for the accompanying anxiety. So you didn't give it a fair shot, but you had a couple left over. Now, where were they? Oh yeah, still in the zippered side pocket of your purse. PHEW, good thing you kept this purse. And you take one. And you feel a difference. And then the next day you take another. And then the next. And then the next. And now you're a Ritalin junkie. Not because it means you're hooked on speed. You're hooked on feeling normal again.
Well, at least somewhat.
And like your brain decided to join the party that is YOU again.
And that's a lot less unsettling.
This is what it feels like:
The doorbell rings and you go into full-on panic about what appointment you forgot. By the time you get to the door you are cursing yourself AND your pits are sweating profusely. Thank GOD it's just an annoying walking political groupie. Then, while you are still getting your heart regulated and not listening to ALL THOSE WORDS, he freaking has the nerve to give you a pop quiz... Except you don't know it until he paused expectantly, waiting for an answer. You go with a safe bet: "The economy?"
You wake up every morning truly not knowing what to do with yourself... From the routine obvious (getting yourself and your kids ready to leave the house) to what to do with open, free down time (so many choices!!!). Inside my not-functioning brain: do I shower first, or brush my teeth first? Think. Think. Think. This didn't seem so hard before! What do I usually do? Wait. What am I going to do when the kids finish their morning show? I'll need to pounce into breakfast duty... But what if that interrupts me from deciding whether to shower or brush my teeth first? Then that question will HANG IN THE BALANCE... And, meanwhile, Campbell might wake up any minute so there goes personal hygiene altogether. What's that? You'd like fuckimg eggs for breakfast? A) I forgot eggs when I had them WRITTEN ON MY LIST at the grocery yesterday, b) I don't trust myself to cook anything that uses anything that needs turning off, and c) Campbell just woke up. You're on you're own.
You keep hearing a still small voice saying that you need rest, yes, rest, that's what you need. That's what will make your functioning brain return to inhabiting your body. So you commit to it like ITS YOUR JOB. You politely say no to things you'd normally say yes to, all the while not liking the way this comes off since you generally like socializing and don't want to be written off as inconsistently flighty... But you remember that not everyone needs to know about or hear your ADHD struggles so you commit to using words like, "Just in an overwhelmed place right now and pairing back temporarily" which is true. But really you JUST PLAIN FEEL LIKE A CRAZY, IRRESPONSBLE, INCOMPETENT, IDIOT who gets ovwhelmed by brushing her teeth or completing a sentence. That's what you really want to say. But you don't to the outer ring. To your husband and your inner ring, you start to share what you want to say, but you can't even get THAT out. But they know. Because this has happened before. And they know what you need: to be handled very tenderly while you feel so unsettled, confused, and moronic. So you now have said no enough to have the space to rest, so you can heal that "overwhelmed" place you're in. But GUESS WHAT? Since almost every single solitary thing there is to do in this life - including resting - involves your brain, it's hard to find respite in rest. You try going to the coffee shop - BUT ALL THOSE SENSES ARE OVERSTIMULATING. You try reading, but - seriously - the words don't make sense. Forget about even glancing at your phone or scrolling through Facebook: information, information, information. Where to file it? What to do with it? The best things, you find, are headphones with music, meditation, and napping. And even though you feel a bit like a mental patient fighting for her sanity (since nobody else seems to find READING stressful), you know you need it. You try to tell yourself it's temporary and the fog will lift and rest won't be a full time job.
You go to book club because you are having a somewhat clear afternoon leading up to it. You pride yourself in being authentic and real. And it feels somewhat shitty to have to weigh whether your cognitive faculties are in tact enough to go, when really you know you ought to be ok with yourself enough to go-and-be-stupid and everyone-else-can-just-deal. But part of ADHD is not being able to pluck the right words from the sea of them (did you ever contemplate HOW MANY there are???). You've got a bunch to express, and the modality to express it... And yet both your filter is not trustworthy (imagine turrets, except with ideas) AND your words are all wrong, going off on these paths you didn't want them to go on... So that, GUESS WHAT!!? Your attempts at being real and authentic only lead you to misrepresent yourself, which feels the opposite of real and authentic.
Your sense of humor... where'd it go? Turns out you need your brain to be funny too. And your sense of humor is something you love about yourself!! But when you try to be sarcastic or witty or cheeky during this period of time, it comes off at best as not funny and at worst at reaching and trying way too hard and likely both. Your timing is all off and your word choice is messed up and - furthermore - you can't figure out what IS funny. And besides that, funny tequires creative juices and when your using up every last drop of juiciness in you just to manage yourself at the basic level, there's no moisture left over for creative. Worst of all, you lose your ability to laugh at yourself - because nothing about how you feel inside is funny. It's scary. Scary takes the zing right out of funny. There's no room for it.
You've instilled in your children the importance of responsibility and harp on them to manage their belongings. And you're wandering around the house every moment that you are awake, hollering, "where is my fucking phone (but really- fill in the blank)?" Except, for the kids' sake, that's only what the inside voice says. The outside one is silent while you suffer with the shame of your hypocrisy as you discombobulatedly race around mindless and crazed when you could just use the "find my phone" feature on the iPad sitting right in front of you. And when you can't follow the basic guidelines you've set for your children over and over again, feeling like a child yourself, you wonder "how the hell am I equipped enough to parent these darlings?" And the insecurity of that gets to feeling REALLY REAL.
And time. A complete quandary. While you struggle with it even in clear times, when the ADHD fog is there, it is an entity that eludes you. You take turns obsessing over it, setting timers, back planning to consider it, making pick up and drop off and practice start times and end time as rigid and unforgiving as ever and ignoring it altogether, being sloppy with it and facing the consequences ashamedly. How to figure out just how important time is? How much respect to assign to it? You become the ultimate philosopher on all the things you-can't-figure-out, and setting your mind out to solve such unsolvable nonsense means it's even more absent for the things right in front of you you already feel ill-equipped to handle.
And since you can't size up which mistakes are the normal ones - the ones that everyone makes - and which ones are the ones that are annoyingly specific to you and your brain chemistry, you assume that everything you do wrong is uniquely your problem... and then you're on a little shame island.
And then you have a night here and there where you drink. Alcohol. And when you are feeling the affects, everything gets better. Not because alcohol makes you do better cognitively, but because you don't have to be so damn concerned with your state. You are probably behaving just as frazzled as your sober ADHD self, but you simply don't give a shit. And you think about the people who are mentally ill, some with ADHD perhaps, who are roaming the streets homeless or lost or in debt or running from the police all while abusing substances and you think I GET IT. You get why one would want to feel this medicated way more often, and here You are with a family who loves you, friends who care about you, money to pay the bills and more, and a life that is full and whole and wonderful. This doesn't make you feel guilty for being not-homeless. And it doesn't make you feel guilty for going through internal battles when so much goodness and so many blessings are right at your feet. Mostly, it makes you super-sucked into the intimate awareness of the hardness of life. If you feel like your problems are big and get scared by the wonderfulness of the aid of alcohol during these episodes, life for these folks must be un-freakin-bearable.
And then your husband (probably because he got freaked when you confessed the drinking thing) says, "why don't you try Ritalin again?" You tried it back when you went bat-shit-crazy after Campbell's birth and felt the benefits were inconsistent and, besides that, you were not liking having to be on TWO medications since lexipro was prescribed for the accompanying anxiety. So you didn't give it a fair shot, but you had a couple left over. Now, where were they? Oh yeah, still in the zippered side pocket of your purse. PHEW, good thing you kept this purse. And you take one. And you feel a difference. And then the next day you take another. And then the next. And then the next. And now you're a Ritalin junkie. Not because it means you're hooked on speed. You're hooked on feeling normal again.
Well, at least somewhat.
And like your brain decided to join the party that is YOU again.
And that's a lot less unsettling.
Sunday, October 23, 2016
Mixed messages
The other day one of my children (youalreadyknowwhoitis:Sullivan) wore his shirt backwards to school. It wasn't a generic t-shirt, mind you. It's important to clarify, because I want you to get the image right in your head. It was a bold-blue collared shirt. Imagine a stiff collar sticking upright in front of Sullivan's throat. He looked reverently priestlike and flamboyantly idiotic all at once. I don't care how clueless 2nd graders generally are... NObody could've missed this wardrobe malfunction.
Now, Sullivan is Sullivan: dreamy, marcher to the beat of a-drummer-nobody's-ever-heard-of, careless, uninterested in 99% of the details of life but obsessively rigid about the 1%. Shirt appropriation, clearly, falls in the 99%.
I am all about my kids doing their own thang with their clothes. Ain't nobody got time for outfit planning four kids. (Correction: Three kids...I do dress Campbell - BUT ONLY CUZ SHE'S ONE I'M CUTTING HER OFF NEXT YEAR - and she is dang cute **most** of the time).
I'm getting to my point.
Really.
I mentioned to Sullivan on the way to school that he had his shirt on backwards and...would he like to take a moment in the van before running out the door to school to switch it around?? I got the rushed, "No, no." Like I often do, which always sends the signal, "I got bigger junk going on in this here head... I can't be bothered with these ridiculously petty concerns."
Out into the world he went...
As is normal for me, I moved right on with my day. Didn't think a thing of it. And there he was at pick up, 6 hours later, looking the exact same way.
I slept great that night.
I happened to have a check-in meeting the following day with one of the teachers pulling him for special services. She.is.marvelous. The meeting was hugely informative and helpful. But I'm not writing about the meeting. I'm writing about society. And this teacher, let's call her Zelda, started out our time together, asking tenderly, "So... Did you know Sullivan was wearing his collared (there it is, again) shirt backwards yesterday?"
I answered that yes I did.
And I coulda stopped there, but I still seek approval and want to appear competent, so - for good measure - I added in cheerfully, "I asked the little guy if he wanted to switch it around before school and he was resistant!" (Can you hear me being cheerful?)
I smiled. And so she smiled. And then she stopped smiling, lowered her voice, and said, It's just that... I didn't want him to... You know...get made fun of."
Zelda is a rock star special Ed teacher, and I know that she totally loves my son. And she is totally tuned in to elementary school culture. And wanted to have Sullivan's back on this topic...
So know that Zelda and I are 100% cool.
But it got me all tripped up inside...
It just so happens that, additionally, I have had a couple mom friends share with me on recent ocassipns that they are worried their kids will get made fun of for this reason or that one. So, there it keeps coming round...this question of how and in what way we out to redirect our kids' choices or behaviors in order for them to be spared teasing.
And it seems to me we are looking at it all wrong.
Especially, ESPECIALLY, when we are simultaneously shoving messages about inner strength and individuality and approval-seeking only from within DOWN THEIR THROATS. At home (we love you exactly as you are), in books (to thine own self be true), on inspirational posters (be yourself, everyone else is taken), from the counselor at school (I don't know what the hell she tells them, but I imagine the previous three examples smushed together). We feed them this. And then we contradict it with subtleties, "You're going to wear that with that?" "Maybe it's time to look at how the other kiddos do their hair" "Have you noticed kids looking at you funny when you say ___ or ___?" "You gotta turn that shirt around, or else you might get teased." They pick up on these inconsistencies. They hear: Be yourself, but if that's too far different, reign that shit back in." Or at the very least, "Learn what it means to be same, learn what it means to be same. Learn what it means to be same. Then follow that. It's your (and everybody else's) due north"
The question in my mind isn't, HOW DO WE GET OUR KIDS AROUND being made fun of?? It's HOW DO WE PREPARE THEIR HEARTS for when it actually does happen?? Cuz, let's face it, when it comes to getting made fun of... Or, to take malicious intent out of it... When it comes to just benign unwanted attention... It's not a matter of IF it will happen in a child, adolescent, adult, or senior citizen's life, it's WHEN.
So, back to Sullivan's shirt. Sullivan being Sullivan, his wearing it backwards wasn't a statement of self-ness, knowing and understanding the convention of front-wearing shirt society and consciously choosing "other". It is very very very likely, just as he noticed for the first time the other day which door we are talking about when we say "front" door (vs. the back one), that Sullivan's ineptitude for detail combined with comprehension issues and a dreamy noggin left him fully unaware about how he had dressed.
Now that's different than indifferent.
The way I see it, there're three ways one arrives in the space of "different," the space of not comfortable:
We have:
-uninterested/indifferent
-unaware
-unable
The first is the most-awesome-feeling vehicle for finding oneself in the space of "different." NOT HARD to own being different when you were the driver who got yourself to that place. I just finished a weekend in New York City, where convention is nowhere to be found, or at least the worship of it is smaller, quieter...and people wear what they want, say what they want, sing that they want when they want to, and the hair. THE HAIR! So many colors, lengths, styles, smells... Backwards shirts here are tame. And the people wearing them, and anything else I perceived as CRAZY, just straight up don't care. Uninterested. In. Convention.
But then there's the other two: UNAWARE and UNABLE. These guys are trickier vehicles in which to arrive at the space "different", because most of the time an individual didn't really plan to arrive there. They just arrived, sorta without choice. And may not like that they did. That doesn't feel good. At least not the first few times. It takes mucho practice being good with where you are when you find yourself in a spot you didn't plan on going.
AND THATS WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT.
THAT'S THE LESSON I WANNA TEACH SULLIVAN AND MY OTHER OFFSPRING .
Not how to avoid arriving at different when you want to. Not how to avoid arriving at different when you DIDNT want to. How to be ok with different, even comfortable with it and familiar with it and mushed up against it, regardless of what got you there. Because it's GONNA FREAKING HAPPEN. And. IT WILL DRAW ATTENTION. That's how emerging homosapiens developing language decided on the definitions to those antonyms. SAME: other cavemen don't look at you. DIFFERENT: other cavemen look at you. Attention is an accompaniment to different. It just is.
UNAWARE is what Sullivan was with his shirt example. Unaware is what I was when, at my 8th grade graduation ceremony when I was called to the stage to speak and I was dressed to the nines in a brand new royal blue form fitting dress that made me feel me and beautiful and wearing my first pair of short little heels, it was called to my attention that I was dragging 4 to 25 squares of toilet paper behind me, lead square stuck to the base of the high heel of my right shoe. If I had had the choice between no toilet paper trail and toilet paper trail on that day, I DEF woulda gone with no. But I arrived at different via unaware. And it was practice. (PS. That's about all I can scrounge up about that memory but I am guessing an additional detail might have been a flushed face... But no teasing, no meanness...I moved through that experience unscathed...again, practice!)
Now I'm gonna give you an UNABLE example. I was having a conversation with my father in law about his childhood experience of bullying. He has talked of it in general terms before, but I now was pulling out specifics... When I asked what his antagonizers did, he said they mainly threw his books out the window or tripped him in the hallway... No physical brauls or fights, per say. When I asked him what he can recall was the onset of his unfortunate position in middle school as "the kid who gets picked on," he didn't pause. He remembers in gym class in Jr. High the start. At that time and place, apparently, athleticism for a boy was a convention. It was "same." So, in gym class, the kids were tasked with cartwheels. and Ric couldn't pull out a single solitary cartwheel. The teasing began. Mastery of one's body - the ability to run, jump, catch, and be coordinated - for a boy in his era...well, it was everything. Ric's abilities in this area at this time were few, and so, well, he came to believe he was "few" in worth, too.
He WANTED to get those legs up. He WANTED to get the momentum to form that circular movement. He WANTED to land on his feet. He just couldn't. He was unable. He was unable to remain "same" and so he arrived at "different" kicking and screaming. Doesn't feel good for "unable" to drive you to "different." Just like the vehicle of unaware. It doesn't feel good, that is, until it feels familiar.
So I'm done with hearing adults talk about their fear of kids getting made fun of. KIDS WILL NOT GET MADE FUN OF (ongoingly) IF SAID KIDS GET PRACTICE WITH THE DISCOMFORT OF DIFFERENT. Mean kids (or rather, kids who are acting mean because their hearts are either overly hardened or overly fragile) leave COMFORT WITH DISCOMFORT alone. They leave that invincibility syrum alone. They don't touch COMFORT WITH DISCOMFORT with a ten foot freaking pole. CUZ, for teasers of our society (young and old and all that is in between), it's cryptonite to their ambitions: to inflict, then watch, discomfort with discomfort.
So, here's the response to uninterested (or indifferent) in convention . This one's easy:
"You don't like my ___ (hair, shoes, attitude, book, laugh, choice of snack, choice of shampoo, choice of tattoo).
Got it. I do."
Here the answer to unaware of convention :
"Holy shit! I just walked the length of that gym with a mile of toilet paper dragging behind me!" And then you hold up the strip like its a streamer and twirl it around 720 degree, but no more, because then you'd have to give your speech looking like a mummy.
Or
"Y'all, I SUCK at dressing. I don't even remember underwear much of the time. The fact that I even HAVE a shirt on is a gift to High plains elementary school. I'm just gonna leave it." Or replace that last statement with, "I am glad you let me know. I'll change it back at lunch."
Here's the answer to unable to meet convention :
"I'm just gonna say it. Cartwheels. Aren't. My. Thing. I could practice till I'm purple in the face and mine wouldn't look even close to your beauties. But you oughta see me in math class. I can work it there."
So that's what I'm gonna focus on in my parenting: Teaching my kids how to gracefully encounter and mush up next to the disomfort of different, NO MATTER HOW THEY EACH INEVITABLY ARRIVE THERE... Press right up against it and have so much practice with it until it doesn't feel uncomfortable anymore...so that it holds no power over them. I'm gonna redirect all my time and my breath from teaching them how to avoid the moving target of adolescent and teenage conventions to role playing and rehearsing and conversating about and grinding in this lesson of comfort with discomfort. SO that if/when they choose "same," it's because they truly want it, not because they are avoiding its opposite...
OR listening to their parent.
Now, Sullivan is Sullivan: dreamy, marcher to the beat of a-drummer-nobody's-ever-heard-of, careless, uninterested in 99% of the details of life but obsessively rigid about the 1%. Shirt appropriation, clearly, falls in the 99%.
I am all about my kids doing their own thang with their clothes. Ain't nobody got time for outfit planning four kids. (Correction: Three kids...I do dress Campbell - BUT ONLY CUZ SHE'S ONE I'M CUTTING HER OFF NEXT YEAR - and she is dang cute **most** of the time).
I'm getting to my point.
Really.
I mentioned to Sullivan on the way to school that he had his shirt on backwards and...would he like to take a moment in the van before running out the door to school to switch it around?? I got the rushed, "No, no." Like I often do, which always sends the signal, "I got bigger junk going on in this here head... I can't be bothered with these ridiculously petty concerns."
Out into the world he went...
As is normal for me, I moved right on with my day. Didn't think a thing of it. And there he was at pick up, 6 hours later, looking the exact same way.
I slept great that night.
I happened to have a check-in meeting the following day with one of the teachers pulling him for special services. She.is.marvelous. The meeting was hugely informative and helpful. But I'm not writing about the meeting. I'm writing about society. And this teacher, let's call her Zelda, started out our time together, asking tenderly, "So... Did you know Sullivan was wearing his collared (there it is, again) shirt backwards yesterday?"
I answered that yes I did.
And I coulda stopped there, but I still seek approval and want to appear competent, so - for good measure - I added in cheerfully, "I asked the little guy if he wanted to switch it around before school and he was resistant!" (Can you hear me being cheerful?)
I smiled. And so she smiled. And then she stopped smiling, lowered her voice, and said, It's just that... I didn't want him to... You know...get made fun of."
Zelda is a rock star special Ed teacher, and I know that she totally loves my son. And she is totally tuned in to elementary school culture. And wanted to have Sullivan's back on this topic...
So know that Zelda and I are 100% cool.
But it got me all tripped up inside...
It just so happens that, additionally, I have had a couple mom friends share with me on recent ocassipns that they are worried their kids will get made fun of for this reason or that one. So, there it keeps coming round...this question of how and in what way we out to redirect our kids' choices or behaviors in order for them to be spared teasing.
And it seems to me we are looking at it all wrong.
Especially, ESPECIALLY, when we are simultaneously shoving messages about inner strength and individuality and approval-seeking only from within DOWN THEIR THROATS. At home (we love you exactly as you are), in books (to thine own self be true), on inspirational posters (be yourself, everyone else is taken), from the counselor at school (I don't know what the hell she tells them, but I imagine the previous three examples smushed together). We feed them this. And then we contradict it with subtleties, "You're going to wear that with that?" "Maybe it's time to look at how the other kiddos do their hair" "Have you noticed kids looking at you funny when you say ___ or ___?" "You gotta turn that shirt around, or else you might get teased." They pick up on these inconsistencies. They hear: Be yourself, but if that's too far different, reign that shit back in." Or at the very least, "Learn what it means to be same, learn what it means to be same. Learn what it means to be same. Then follow that. It's your (and everybody else's) due north"
The question in my mind isn't, HOW DO WE GET OUR KIDS AROUND being made fun of?? It's HOW DO WE PREPARE THEIR HEARTS for when it actually does happen?? Cuz, let's face it, when it comes to getting made fun of... Or, to take malicious intent out of it... When it comes to just benign unwanted attention... It's not a matter of IF it will happen in a child, adolescent, adult, or senior citizen's life, it's WHEN.
So, back to Sullivan's shirt. Sullivan being Sullivan, his wearing it backwards wasn't a statement of self-ness, knowing and understanding the convention of front-wearing shirt society and consciously choosing "other". It is very very very likely, just as he noticed for the first time the other day which door we are talking about when we say "front" door (vs. the back one), that Sullivan's ineptitude for detail combined with comprehension issues and a dreamy noggin left him fully unaware about how he had dressed.
Now that's different than indifferent.
The way I see it, there're three ways one arrives in the space of "different," the space of not comfortable:
We have:
-uninterested/indifferent
-unaware
-unable
The first is the most-awesome-feeling vehicle for finding oneself in the space of "different." NOT HARD to own being different when you were the driver who got yourself to that place. I just finished a weekend in New York City, where convention is nowhere to be found, or at least the worship of it is smaller, quieter...and people wear what they want, say what they want, sing that they want when they want to, and the hair. THE HAIR! So many colors, lengths, styles, smells... Backwards shirts here are tame. And the people wearing them, and anything else I perceived as CRAZY, just straight up don't care. Uninterested. In. Convention.
But then there's the other two: UNAWARE and UNABLE. These guys are trickier vehicles in which to arrive at the space "different", because most of the time an individual didn't really plan to arrive there. They just arrived, sorta without choice. And may not like that they did. That doesn't feel good. At least not the first few times. It takes mucho practice being good with where you are when you find yourself in a spot you didn't plan on going.
AND THATS WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT.
THAT'S THE LESSON I WANNA TEACH SULLIVAN AND MY OTHER OFFSPRING .
Not how to avoid arriving at different when you want to. Not how to avoid arriving at different when you DIDNT want to. How to be ok with different, even comfortable with it and familiar with it and mushed up against it, regardless of what got you there. Because it's GONNA FREAKING HAPPEN. And. IT WILL DRAW ATTENTION. That's how emerging homosapiens developing language decided on the definitions to those antonyms. SAME: other cavemen don't look at you. DIFFERENT: other cavemen look at you. Attention is an accompaniment to different. It just is.
UNAWARE is what Sullivan was with his shirt example. Unaware is what I was when, at my 8th grade graduation ceremony when I was called to the stage to speak and I was dressed to the nines in a brand new royal blue form fitting dress that made me feel me and beautiful and wearing my first pair of short little heels, it was called to my attention that I was dragging 4 to 25 squares of toilet paper behind me, lead square stuck to the base of the high heel of my right shoe. If I had had the choice between no toilet paper trail and toilet paper trail on that day, I DEF woulda gone with no. But I arrived at different via unaware. And it was practice. (PS. That's about all I can scrounge up about that memory but I am guessing an additional detail might have been a flushed face... But no teasing, no meanness...I moved through that experience unscathed...again, practice!)
Now I'm gonna give you an UNABLE example. I was having a conversation with my father in law about his childhood experience of bullying. He has talked of it in general terms before, but I now was pulling out specifics... When I asked what his antagonizers did, he said they mainly threw his books out the window or tripped him in the hallway... No physical brauls or fights, per say. When I asked him what he can recall was the onset of his unfortunate position in middle school as "the kid who gets picked on," he didn't pause. He remembers in gym class in Jr. High the start. At that time and place, apparently, athleticism for a boy was a convention. It was "same." So, in gym class, the kids were tasked with cartwheels. and Ric couldn't pull out a single solitary cartwheel. The teasing began. Mastery of one's body - the ability to run, jump, catch, and be coordinated - for a boy in his era...well, it was everything. Ric's abilities in this area at this time were few, and so, well, he came to believe he was "few" in worth, too.
He WANTED to get those legs up. He WANTED to get the momentum to form that circular movement. He WANTED to land on his feet. He just couldn't. He was unable. He was unable to remain "same" and so he arrived at "different" kicking and screaming. Doesn't feel good for "unable" to drive you to "different." Just like the vehicle of unaware. It doesn't feel good, that is, until it feels familiar.
So I'm done with hearing adults talk about their fear of kids getting made fun of. KIDS WILL NOT GET MADE FUN OF (ongoingly) IF SAID KIDS GET PRACTICE WITH THE DISCOMFORT OF DIFFERENT. Mean kids (or rather, kids who are acting mean because their hearts are either overly hardened or overly fragile) leave COMFORT WITH DISCOMFORT alone. They leave that invincibility syrum alone. They don't touch COMFORT WITH DISCOMFORT with a ten foot freaking pole. CUZ, for teasers of our society (young and old and all that is in between), it's cryptonite to their ambitions: to inflict, then watch, discomfort with discomfort.
So, here's the response to uninterested (or indifferent) in convention . This one's easy:
"You don't like my ___ (hair, shoes, attitude, book, laugh, choice of snack, choice of shampoo, choice of tattoo).
Got it. I do."
Here the answer to unaware of convention :
"Holy shit! I just walked the length of that gym with a mile of toilet paper dragging behind me!" And then you hold up the strip like its a streamer and twirl it around 720 degree, but no more, because then you'd have to give your speech looking like a mummy.
Or
"Y'all, I SUCK at dressing. I don't even remember underwear much of the time. The fact that I even HAVE a shirt on is a gift to High plains elementary school. I'm just gonna leave it." Or replace that last statement with, "I am glad you let me know. I'll change it back at lunch."
Here's the answer to unable to meet convention :
"I'm just gonna say it. Cartwheels. Aren't. My. Thing. I could practice till I'm purple in the face and mine wouldn't look even close to your beauties. But you oughta see me in math class. I can work it there."
So that's what I'm gonna focus on in my parenting: Teaching my kids how to gracefully encounter and mush up next to the disomfort of different, NO MATTER HOW THEY EACH INEVITABLY ARRIVE THERE... Press right up against it and have so much practice with it until it doesn't feel uncomfortable anymore...so that it holds no power over them. I'm gonna redirect all my time and my breath from teaching them how to avoid the moving target of adolescent and teenage conventions to role playing and rehearsing and conversating about and grinding in this lesson of comfort with discomfort. SO that if/when they choose "same," it's because they truly want it, not because they are avoiding its opposite...
OR listening to their parent.
Thursday, August 11, 2016
Five Things I Learned the Hard Way This Summer
Five Things I Learned The Hard Way This Summer
1. The library is not free (for people like me).
There should be a sign on the front door reading, "WARNING: This establishment's services are free ONLY if you are responsible and organized and On Top of Life." I owe $33 and some change on books and [mainly] DVDs I cannot find. This is one situation where having a bigger family is helpful; I keep opening up children accounts to dodge fines that have accrued. Since I'm working in descending order, my goal is NOT to have the 1-yr-old blackballed from the public library before she can talk. Or read.
2. I wish I had never introduced hand sanitizer as a viable form of hand cleaning.
It all started as my lazy approach to keeping entering-from-the-outside-world filth controlled (after our whole family kept getting sickness after sickness last school year). To avoid a battle each time we came into the house, I bought a four hundred ounce pump of hand sanitizer and set it right on the inside of our garage door. But now... now that we spend our days around like.all.the.time, the kids try to pull hand-sanitizer trick on me to clean their chocolate-frosting-hands and their mud-caked-hands and their GOD HELP ME poop-spotted-hands (it happens). No no no... CHILDREN... you cannot shortcut on poop. You gotta immerse under water with foam soap and sing the damn alphabet all the way through. Maybe twice.
3. The dentist ain't half-bad.
I was dreading our annual (**this is NOT the recommended frequency**) dentist visit last week where I had loaded in all three of the teethed children's appointments, plus mine. I got all of them through their appointments with bribery reminders and without major incident, and then it came time for mine. Sweet Lord above! I am reclined. I have my eyes closed. I can't yell or reprimand my children, even if I wanted to due to mouth-wide-open position. I don't know where they are or what they are doing. My dental insurance includes receptionist oversight of minors, right? I told my dental hygienist that I have been playing my cards all wrong by avoiding the experience... Next summer I will schedule weekly appointments.
4. A solution to the laundry situation = swimwear.
I don't know about yours, but my kids cannot seem to master the "Can it be worn again or is it dirty?" discernment required to know what constitutes a toss to the hamper. I swear I've explained the rules... If it has no spots and does not smell, it can be worn again. If you have not come into contact with an infectious disease, it can be worn again. And least of all - if you've had it on your body for less than an hour, it can be worn again. With All Of The Water that comes with summer (sprinkler games, water balloon antics, squirt gun wars, pool trips), my kids are in and out of dry clothing faster than you can say LAUNDRY NIGHTMARE, each time without consideration of "can it be worn again or is it dirty." I JUST figured out the solution days away from the summer's end: skip clothes. They go straight from pajamas to swimsuits. And pretty much stay this way the remainder of the day. That is, until they come into contact with an infectious disease...
5. Reading programs motivate kids but moreso obsess them.
I want my kids to read during the summer. I want them to do it, just because. But those are not my kids. My kids are the ones who fixate on rewards. They are fixators. And obsessors. And collectors. Put before them a summer reading program which draws young people based on their need to be positively affirmed with collectables and trinkets...and we have a match made in hell. Because "unlocking" each of their ridiculous reading rewards is on them. But driving them to wherever they pick them up is on me. (Never mind additional time-sucks of educational Scavenger Hunts that lead to the cheap little plastic whatevers). If I had to do it all over again, and it is between digressing in their reading over the summer or going through the hell that is Summer Reading Programs, I might have chosen illiteracy.
P.S. School starts today, so remind me about these discoveries in 9 months, K?
1. The library is not free (for people like me).
There should be a sign on the front door reading, "WARNING: This establishment's services are free ONLY if you are responsible and organized and On Top of Life." I owe $33 and some change on books and [mainly] DVDs I cannot find. This is one situation where having a bigger family is helpful; I keep opening up children accounts to dodge fines that have accrued. Since I'm working in descending order, my goal is NOT to have the 1-yr-old blackballed from the public library before she can talk. Or read.
2. I wish I had never introduced hand sanitizer as a viable form of hand cleaning.
It all started as my lazy approach to keeping entering-from-the-outside-world filth controlled (after our whole family kept getting sickness after sickness last school year). To avoid a battle each time we came into the house, I bought a four hundred ounce pump of hand sanitizer and set it right on the inside of our garage door. But now... now that we spend our days around like.all.the.time, the kids try to pull hand-sanitizer trick on me to clean their chocolate-frosting-hands and their mud-caked-hands and their GOD HELP ME poop-spotted-hands (it happens). No no no... CHILDREN... you cannot shortcut on poop. You gotta immerse under water with foam soap and sing the damn alphabet all the way through. Maybe twice.
3. The dentist ain't half-bad.
I was dreading our annual (**this is NOT the recommended frequency**) dentist visit last week where I had loaded in all three of the teethed children's appointments, plus mine. I got all of them through their appointments with bribery reminders and without major incident, and then it came time for mine. Sweet Lord above! I am reclined. I have my eyes closed. I can't yell or reprimand my children, even if I wanted to due to mouth-wide-open position. I don't know where they are or what they are doing. My dental insurance includes receptionist oversight of minors, right? I told my dental hygienist that I have been playing my cards all wrong by avoiding the experience... Next summer I will schedule weekly appointments.
4. A solution to the laundry situation = swimwear.
I don't know about yours, but my kids cannot seem to master the "Can it be worn again or is it dirty?" discernment required to know what constitutes a toss to the hamper. I swear I've explained the rules... If it has no spots and does not smell, it can be worn again. If you have not come into contact with an infectious disease, it can be worn again. And least of all - if you've had it on your body for less than an hour, it can be worn again. With All Of The Water that comes with summer (sprinkler games, water balloon antics, squirt gun wars, pool trips), my kids are in and out of dry clothing faster than you can say LAUNDRY NIGHTMARE, each time without consideration of "can it be worn again or is it dirty." I JUST figured out the solution days away from the summer's end: skip clothes. They go straight from pajamas to swimsuits. And pretty much stay this way the remainder of the day. That is, until they come into contact with an infectious disease...
5. Reading programs motivate kids but moreso obsess them.
I want my kids to read during the summer. I want them to do it, just because. But those are not my kids. My kids are the ones who fixate on rewards. They are fixators. And obsessors. And collectors. Put before them a summer reading program which draws young people based on their need to be positively affirmed with collectables and trinkets...and we have a match made in hell. Because "unlocking" each of their ridiculous reading rewards is on them. But driving them to wherever they pick them up is on me. (Never mind additional time-sucks of educational Scavenger Hunts that lead to the cheap little plastic whatevers). If I had to do it all over again, and it is between digressing in their reading over the summer or going through the hell that is Summer Reading Programs, I might have chosen illiteracy.
P.S. School starts today, so remind me about these discoveries in 9 months, K?
Thursday, July 28, 2016
Invitation to My Dinner Party
I have learned, finally, that I do better when I pay attention to my heart. Not the emotional life of my figurative heart, although that's entirely true as well. I actually mean my Heart. The physical one in my chest. It beats faster sometimes, like all hearts do. But it has taken me a lifetime to sharpen my awareness surrounding my physical heart's increases in tempo.
My heart has been a freaking yo-yo for the past week. I've calmed it, then recalmed it... Then read facebook. Then calmed it. Then watched the news, then clicked on links connecting me to articles. Then re-calmed it. Then re-calmed it again. Then, again.
And I sure as heck know better than to write when it's going gangbusters in there. My experience of a fastly beating heart is lower functioning reasoning skills.
It's finally even.
So here I go.
I think pontificating about sensitive topics in the absence of sharing personal experience with the charged topic is like shoving a plate of food in someone's face instead of inviting the individual to your home for dinner. It's an intrusive, abbreviated version of what could have been a meaningful experience. We are good at not-framing...and getting better. We post and tweet and like and blast and shove all sorts of dinner (often with fastly beating hearts) into recipients' faces, whether hunger is involved or not, without them having the slightest clue about what got us there. Of course, they return the favor with an equally large plate of food. As much as we care not to admit it - particularly when others arrive at places different than where we are standing - I would argue that folks come to conclusions for reasons that would resonate with anyone put in their shoes. Their history, their stories, their relationships, their family of origin, their city of origin, their baggage. Brene Brown is quoted saying, "Maybe stories are just data with a soul." If we separate the soulful data attached to our personal life stories from our talking points, we lose. It takes time, but I'm a believer in STARTING with the story.
I'm starting with my own. And it's going to be a dang long dinner party. Find a comfy chair.
The events in our country's post-Independence-Day-week meant a lot of soul searching for me (in-between fastly-beating-heart episodes), and I needed to go on a wild goose chase for both my deeper, difficult-to-retrieve and right-on-the-surface memories in order to trace the dusty footprints leading me to my beliefs about race in this country now.
NOTE 1: I feel very, very confident that I screwed this up. I am not a real writer or researcher. I have not read one academic book on Race In America. I'm just me. Little ole me. I feel certain that I made at least one inference that was unfair and formed at least one conclusion based on faulty connections and made at least one blanket statement based on lazy generalizations. At best (and what I'll hope for), this will come off as dumb and at worst, potentially offensive and insulting. Please forgive me ahead of time. Whatever this writing experience lacks in smartness, it makes up for in honesty. Focus on that. Honesty. Of the author. Not her stupidity.
NOTE 2: I am not expecting this to change the world. Telling this story to myself is, as it turns out, what mattered the most. So, I wrote it for me. I'm just inviting you along if you choose.
NOTE 3: Memories are crazy things, in that they are often all wrong. Or, at the least, not reliably accurate. I suppose my whole point in encouraging "the telling of the story" is to demonstrate how we all come to the place we are in because of our life-acquired perspectives. Memories are not short of those, either. I haven't filtered my memories through any sieves but the sieve of me. Sorry if you were there, and I got it wrong.
NOTE 4: The statistics about population and demographics almost all came from susburbanstats.org, so as to keep the numbers comparable. When a suburb was too small to be noted on that site, I turned to Wikipedia. I only included four race groups (White, Black, Latino, and Asian), only because those were the most prominent of all represented.
NOTE 5: I began this entry the week of July 12th, thinking I'd hammer out a thoughtful account in one night. When that night turned into the next morning (Sweet Jesus, was that day of parenting tough) and I hadn't scratched the surface, it became clear to me this was a long-term project. It has taken a few weeks, pecking away, to get to publishing.
My heart has been a freaking yo-yo for the past week. I've calmed it, then recalmed it... Then read facebook. Then calmed it. Then watched the news, then clicked on links connecting me to articles. Then re-calmed it. Then re-calmed it again. Then, again.
And I sure as heck know better than to write when it's going gangbusters in there. My experience of a fastly beating heart is lower functioning reasoning skills.
It's finally even.
So here I go.
I think pontificating about sensitive topics in the absence of sharing personal experience with the charged topic is like shoving a plate of food in someone's face instead of inviting the individual to your home for dinner. It's an intrusive, abbreviated version of what could have been a meaningful experience. We are good at not-framing...and getting better. We post and tweet and like and blast and shove all sorts of dinner (often with fastly beating hearts) into recipients' faces, whether hunger is involved or not, without them having the slightest clue about what got us there. Of course, they return the favor with an equally large plate of food. As much as we care not to admit it - particularly when others arrive at places different than where we are standing - I would argue that folks come to conclusions for reasons that would resonate with anyone put in their shoes. Their history, their stories, their relationships, their family of origin, their city of origin, their baggage. Brene Brown is quoted saying, "Maybe stories are just data with a soul." If we separate the soulful data attached to our personal life stories from our talking points, we lose. It takes time, but I'm a believer in STARTING with the story.
I'm starting with my own. And it's going to be a dang long dinner party. Find a comfy chair.
The events in our country's post-Independence-Day-week meant a lot of soul searching for me (in-between fastly-beating-heart episodes), and I needed to go on a wild goose chase for both my deeper, difficult-to-retrieve and right-on-the-surface memories in order to trace the dusty footprints leading me to my beliefs about race in this country now.
NOTE 1: I feel very, very confident that I screwed this up. I am not a real writer or researcher. I have not read one academic book on Race In America. I'm just me. Little ole me. I feel certain that I made at least one inference that was unfair and formed at least one conclusion based on faulty connections and made at least one blanket statement based on lazy generalizations. At best (and what I'll hope for), this will come off as dumb and at worst, potentially offensive and insulting. Please forgive me ahead of time. Whatever this writing experience lacks in smartness, it makes up for in honesty. Focus on that. Honesty. Of the author. Not her stupidity.
NOTE 2: I am not expecting this to change the world. Telling this story to myself is, as it turns out, what mattered the most. So, I wrote it for me. I'm just inviting you along if you choose.
NOTE 3: Memories are crazy things, in that they are often all wrong. Or, at the least, not reliably accurate. I suppose my whole point in encouraging "the telling of the story" is to demonstrate how we all come to the place we are in because of our life-acquired perspectives. Memories are not short of those, either. I haven't filtered my memories through any sieves but the sieve of me. Sorry if you were there, and I got it wrong.
NOTE 4: The statistics about population and demographics almost all came from susburbanstats.org, so as to keep the numbers comparable. When a suburb was too small to be noted on that site, I turned to Wikipedia. I only included four race groups (White, Black, Latino, and Asian), only because those were the most prominent of all represented.
NOTE 5: I began this entry the week of July 12th, thinking I'd hammer out a thoughtful account in one night. When that night turned into the next morning (Sweet Jesus, was that day of parenting tough) and I hadn't scratched the surface, it became clear to me this was a long-term project. It has taken a few weeks, pecking away, to get to publishing.
The Elementary Years
Raised in Louisville, KY.
Population: 597,337 Race breakdown:W(hite): 70% B(lack): 22% L(atino): 4% A(sian): 2%
FIRST GRADE:
I went to elementary school with a lot of black kiddos, a few black teachers, and one black principal. Mrs. Hodge-Trice, my 1st grade teacher, was my favorite teacher of all time. She was black. But I remember her most because at the end of each grading period she would buy a slew of toys and place them out on a table and, based on our work ethic in math activities, we were allowed to go select one. What kid doesn't like toys? Truly, human children are shallow creatures.
My principle, Mrs. Johnson, had the longest, most glamorously long legs and wore her hair in a highly-perched bun nearly every day. If I'm being honest, I thought Mrs. Johnson was the most beautiful woman I'd ever known up to that point.
I tell these stories because they said to me, while still color-blind, "Mrs. Hodge-Trice sure is nice. She likes me. I like her. She buys toys." and "Mrs. Johnson is who I want to be... she is smart, happy, and tall." (P.S. When I was in kindergarten, a girl on the bus said that I ought to check to find out if I was a midget... I mention this, because I have always been hopelessly short-legged and in elementary school particularly pip-squeak-like. Tall women made me salivate.). So, there really was no valuable take-away at the time outside of toys and height. But I do think visiting Mrs. Hodge-Trice every few years in her classroom all the way until she retired (The last time I returned with a fellow student, Rachel Jacobs, when we were young adults) sure was cool. And I think observing a black-AND-woman in a position of leadership as a child (principal may have well = God) had to have gone a long way. They were both ladies I admired and respected. And they are both black. That's not novel or all that unique. But it's a very special part of my story.
FOURTH GRADE:
Hillary Jackson was one of my buddies at Chenoweth Elementary School. Maybe I was an idiot, but I don't think I did the best-friend-thing in elementary school. I had lots of girl pals. And Hillary was One Of My Girlfriends. Hillary is black. Things were honky dory until I remember that at recess one day during whatever-game-it-is-that-3rd-graders-play, I must have somehow left her out. Did I not tag her for re-entry into a freeze tag game? Not invite her to do clapping games? Not pick her for my kickball team? Or maybe a group of us kept her "it" too long without offering to switch out? I didn't know what I did then, and I do not know now. But Hillary knew. And she told me about it. Her words were something like, "You're going to be like that... I see," and stormed off. You have to know that I didn't do Be Like That. If I hung my hat on anything as a young tike, it was least-likely-to-get-into-trouble-or-cause-a-rift. I was the essence of innocence, compliance, and non-conflict. Basically, I was a weenie. And so, I was dumb-founded by this. The next day was science fair day and my stand-up presentation board was right next to Hillary's. So I approached her about her earlier words, wanting to understand. "You know what I'm talking about," she responded. I SWEAR I DID NOT KNOW WHAT SHE WAS TALKING ABOUT. What I do know is that although we remained friendly with one another for several more years, Hillary and I split up on that day. Something inexplicable was between us. And I let it happen, because I didn't know what else to do. I'm pretty sure I processed this out with my parents, because it bamboozled me so. I have NO CLUE what they said. None. But I, to this day, have a sad spot in my heart for having lost Hillary. And for her having lost me. It took a few years for me to reflect on this life event with any degree of clarity. But at some point I concluded that Hillary was noticing something that I had the priviledge not to
notice. She was noticing that we 4th graders were slowly ceasing to be colorblind. Perhaps her wordlessness surrounding it reflected that she hadn't quite put all of her observational pieces together yet either. But it was clear that she FELT it.
I tell this story, because it said to me, "Black kids notice stuff white kids don't." Even as I still assert
that Hillary's beef with me that day was most certainly something done unknowingly on my part, it still matters. It STILL matters. It still deserved examination. And discussion. I only wish there had been an opening to do so.
Population: 597,337 Race breakdown:W(hite): 70% B(lack): 22% L(atino): 4% A(sian): 2%
FIRST GRADE:
I went to elementary school with a lot of black kiddos, a few black teachers, and one black principal. Mrs. Hodge-Trice, my 1st grade teacher, was my favorite teacher of all time. She was black. But I remember her most because at the end of each grading period she would buy a slew of toys and place them out on a table and, based on our work ethic in math activities, we were allowed to go select one. What kid doesn't like toys? Truly, human children are shallow creatures.
My principle, Mrs. Johnson, had the longest, most glamorously long legs and wore her hair in a highly-perched bun nearly every day. If I'm being honest, I thought Mrs. Johnson was the most beautiful woman I'd ever known up to that point.
I tell these stories because they said to me, while still color-blind, "Mrs. Hodge-Trice sure is nice. She likes me. I like her. She buys toys." and "Mrs. Johnson is who I want to be... she is smart, happy, and tall." (P.S. When I was in kindergarten, a girl on the bus said that I ought to check to find out if I was a midget... I mention this, because I have always been hopelessly short-legged and in elementary school particularly pip-squeak-like. Tall women made me salivate.). So, there really was no valuable take-away at the time outside of toys and height. But I do think visiting Mrs. Hodge-Trice every few years in her classroom all the way until she retired (The last time I returned with a fellow student, Rachel Jacobs, when we were young adults) sure was cool. And I think observing a black-AND-woman in a position of leadership as a child (principal may have well = God) had to have gone a long way. They were both ladies I admired and respected. And they are both black. That's not novel or all that unique. But it's a very special part of my story.
FOURTH GRADE:
Hillary Jackson was one of my buddies at Chenoweth Elementary School. Maybe I was an idiot, but I don't think I did the best-friend-thing in elementary school. I had lots of girl pals. And Hillary was One Of My Girlfriends. Hillary is black. Things were honky dory until I remember that at recess one day during whatever-game-it-is-that-3rd-graders-play, I must have somehow left her out. Did I not tag her for re-entry into a freeze tag game? Not invite her to do clapping games? Not pick her for my kickball team? Or maybe a group of us kept her "it" too long without offering to switch out? I didn't know what I did then, and I do not know now. But Hillary knew. And she told me about it. Her words were something like, "You're going to be like that... I see," and stormed off. You have to know that I didn't do Be Like That. If I hung my hat on anything as a young tike, it was least-likely-to-get-into-trouble-or-cause-a-rift. I was the essence of innocence, compliance, and non-conflict. Basically, I was a weenie. And so, I was dumb-founded by this. The next day was science fair day and my stand-up presentation board was right next to Hillary's. So I approached her about her earlier words, wanting to understand. "You know what I'm talking about," she responded. I SWEAR I DID NOT KNOW WHAT SHE WAS TALKING ABOUT. What I do know is that although we remained friendly with one another for several more years, Hillary and I split up on that day. Something inexplicable was between us. And I let it happen, because I didn't know what else to do. I'm pretty sure I processed this out with my parents, because it bamboozled me so. I have NO CLUE what they said. None. But I, to this day, have a sad spot in my heart for having lost Hillary. And for her having lost me. It took a few years for me to reflect on this life event with any degree of clarity. But at some point I concluded that Hillary was noticing something that I had the priviledge not to
notice. She was noticing that we 4th graders were slowly ceasing to be colorblind. Perhaps her wordlessness surrounding it reflected that she hadn't quite put all of her observational pieces together yet either. But it was clear that she FELT it.
I tell this story, because it said to me, "Black kids notice stuff white kids don't." Even as I still assert
that Hillary's beef with me that day was most certainly something done unknowingly on my part, it still matters. It STILL matters. It still deserved examination. And discussion. I only wish there had been an opening to do so.
The Middle School Years
SIXTH GRADE:
I went to Westport Middle School for grades 6-8. Westport, as I remember it, was a pretty colorful place. It was also a relatively rough school, although I do not mention those statements back-to-back to connect the two. I do not know how the aggressive behaviors (read: fights) related to race (black vs. black? white vs. black? white vs. white?) or if there was a relationship at all.
But I do have a pretty clear picture of the attendance grid on the gym floor in P.E class.. You know what I mean? When the gym teacher, who has like 45 kids to manage at once, can only take attendance civilly if we are separated out, cross-legged on little masking tape dots, equidistant from one another, and told to be silent until further instruction... I was sitting in my little spot, when I heard from behind me the word, "Cracker."
Yum! Snack time! Who knew P.E. could be so great!
Did I already mention that I was a naive soul? Before too long I realized that it was me who the black girl two grid dots away was talking to and that she was calling me one, not offering me one. My memory says that we did not know one another's names or favorite colors or boy crushes. Acquaintances, we were not. I do remember smiling. Because, that's sort of my thing when I don't know what else to do. And waving, looking into her eyes, I hollered "Hello." Black-girl-I-didnt-know-two-dots-away looked at black-girl-one-dot-away-from-her (likely her accomplice in the ordeal) pretty confused; they were searching each other's faces for what was next. And there was no next. That was the end of that. I didn't know it, but I think I diffused something. Why were they messing with me? Were they looking for a reaction? Where they hoping to feel some power over a shy, intimidated soul who would shrink and do nothing? Or were they hoping for aggression, excited at their chances to engage in a fight? When I offered neither weakness nor anger, instead nice... there wasn't much else to do.
Again, I know I brought this home to my parents. And AGAIN I haven't the foggiest notion of how they coached me. My guess is that I laid on the nice, with a smile, "hello" and eye contact, ever day thereafter to make it impossible for me to be seen as rude or racist or whatever they deemed as cracker-like.
The reason I tell this story is because it counted as the very first time in my twelve-or-so-year-old life that I remember being part of a REAL, bonified racial moment. And because I learned the power of head-on, looking-someone-in-the-eyeballs, unexpected "nice" in response to a charged moment. I wish I could tell you that I learned those girls' names and sought - at the very least - acquaintance with them. That would have been an even braver and more productive response. Glenn Doyle Melton wrote recently that "fear cannot survive proximity." I believe this. But even though I didn't get closer than the couple grid-dots away during attendance and all I could muster at the time was a smile, "hello," and eye contact, I suppose that counts as proximity when cowering was an option. Even today, when faced with the choice between silent, distant retreat or aggressive, in-your-face rage (the ole fight or flight model), I try really hard to choose neither. Not when the third option of nice proximity is available.
SEVENTH GRADE:
At the beginning of summer, I had a tradition of inviting my schoolmates to an end-of-school-year party in my back yard. We lived in a brick house in St. Matthews, a highly sought-after inner ring suburb to downtown Louisville composed of older, sometimes historic, homes. Although it was modest in size (3 bedrooms), my house's location and charm spoke, "We are well off." I didn't know this for a long time, but we were only able to swing that house because my father's parents had lived in it before we did. We became owners after they passed. All of my neighbors were old and white. I hankered for playmates. When I went girl scout cookie selling each year, since my parents taught me to be respectful to the geriatric community, I had to say "yes" when each neighbor invited me in and consequently satisfy each and every one of their unmet social needs. Lots of Old People = Lots. Of. Stories.
I remember the year Turquoise White came to my party. She was one of my black classmates. I remember her as the most talkative and bubbly soul. Everybody liked Turquoise. And, as far as I could tell, Turquoise seemed to like everybody. When Turquoise's mom picked Turquoise up that afternoon, she lingered for a long time on our back porch, where Mom had set out snackie foods. I only know this story, because Mom retold it lots of times. Otherwise I would be clueless, since Turquoise and the rest of us were busy milking all the play time we had left. My mom had invited Turquoise's mom to help herself to the snacks. And she ate and talked and ate and talked. And Mom kept politely chatting, too. Mom was beginning to wonder if she were planning on staying all afternoon, when all at once she began loading up a paper plate WHILE talking on and on. (It's worth mentioning here that, while everyone loved coming to our house and eating my mom's food, she was NOT a fancy host... I imagine brownies, turkey sandwiches, pickles, and maybe cheetos on display). Turquoise's mom piled high and deep. High and deep. And concluded it with a paper napkin, unfolded and draped over the top layer. Then, finally, off Turquoise and her mom went, perhaps to feed her whole neighborhood. My mom always told this story with warmth. I think she really did think Turquoise's mom was a stitch, just as I had always thought Turquoise was.
The reason I tell this story is because it stuck out to me that Turquoise and her mom were out of their element. I remember it took quite some time (over the phone! imagine that!) to give directions to their family to my house. And that, heck, since it was an ordeal to get there, maybe Turquoise's mom figured she may as well stay a bit. And get a meal in in the process. And maybe one for brother and sister. Although I had several black peers to my house over the remaining years I lived at home (SHOUT OUT TO HIGH SCHOOL TRACK AND FIELD END OF SEASON PARTIES!!!), this might have been the first, and it made me recognized how pale my whole neighborhood looked. I may have gone to a school that taught me the richness of socializing with lots of kids different than myself, but I came home every day to a lot of people looking just like me (except with a lot of wrinkles).
I went to Westport Middle School for grades 6-8. Westport, as I remember it, was a pretty colorful place. It was also a relatively rough school, although I do not mention those statements back-to-back to connect the two. I do not know how the aggressive behaviors (read: fights) related to race (black vs. black? white vs. black? white vs. white?) or if there was a relationship at all.
But I do have a pretty clear picture of the attendance grid on the gym floor in P.E class.. You know what I mean? When the gym teacher, who has like 45 kids to manage at once, can only take attendance civilly if we are separated out, cross-legged on little masking tape dots, equidistant from one another, and told to be silent until further instruction... I was sitting in my little spot, when I heard from behind me the word, "Cracker."
Yum! Snack time! Who knew P.E. could be so great!
Did I already mention that I was a naive soul? Before too long I realized that it was me who the black girl two grid dots away was talking to and that she was calling me one, not offering me one. My memory says that we did not know one another's names or favorite colors or boy crushes. Acquaintances, we were not. I do remember smiling. Because, that's sort of my thing when I don't know what else to do. And waving, looking into her eyes, I hollered "Hello." Black-girl-I-didnt-know-two-dots-away looked at black-girl-one-dot-away-from-her (likely her accomplice in the ordeal) pretty confused; they were searching each other's faces for what was next. And there was no next. That was the end of that. I didn't know it, but I think I diffused something. Why were they messing with me? Were they looking for a reaction? Where they hoping to feel some power over a shy, intimidated soul who would shrink and do nothing? Or were they hoping for aggression, excited at their chances to engage in a fight? When I offered neither weakness nor anger, instead nice... there wasn't much else to do.
Again, I know I brought this home to my parents. And AGAIN I haven't the foggiest notion of how they coached me. My guess is that I laid on the nice, with a smile, "hello" and eye contact, ever day thereafter to make it impossible for me to be seen as rude or racist or whatever they deemed as cracker-like.
The reason I tell this story is because it counted as the very first time in my twelve-or-so-year-old life that I remember being part of a REAL, bonified racial moment. And because I learned the power of head-on, looking-someone-in-the-eyeballs, unexpected "nice" in response to a charged moment. I wish I could tell you that I learned those girls' names and sought - at the very least - acquaintance with them. That would have been an even braver and more productive response. Glenn Doyle Melton wrote recently that "fear cannot survive proximity." I believe this. But even though I didn't get closer than the couple grid-dots away during attendance and all I could muster at the time was a smile, "hello," and eye contact, I suppose that counts as proximity when cowering was an option. Even today, when faced with the choice between silent, distant retreat or aggressive, in-your-face rage (the ole fight or flight model), I try really hard to choose neither. Not when the third option of nice proximity is available.
SEVENTH GRADE:
At the beginning of summer, I had a tradition of inviting my schoolmates to an end-of-school-year party in my back yard. We lived in a brick house in St. Matthews, a highly sought-after inner ring suburb to downtown Louisville composed of older, sometimes historic, homes. Although it was modest in size (3 bedrooms), my house's location and charm spoke, "We are well off." I didn't know this for a long time, but we were only able to swing that house because my father's parents had lived in it before we did. We became owners after they passed. All of my neighbors were old and white. I hankered for playmates. When I went girl scout cookie selling each year, since my parents taught me to be respectful to the geriatric community, I had to say "yes" when each neighbor invited me in and consequently satisfy each and every one of their unmet social needs. Lots of Old People = Lots. Of. Stories.
I remember the year Turquoise White came to my party. She was one of my black classmates. I remember her as the most talkative and bubbly soul. Everybody liked Turquoise. And, as far as I could tell, Turquoise seemed to like everybody. When Turquoise's mom picked Turquoise up that afternoon, she lingered for a long time on our back porch, where Mom had set out snackie foods. I only know this story, because Mom retold it lots of times. Otherwise I would be clueless, since Turquoise and the rest of us were busy milking all the play time we had left. My mom had invited Turquoise's mom to help herself to the snacks. And she ate and talked and ate and talked. And Mom kept politely chatting, too. Mom was beginning to wonder if she were planning on staying all afternoon, when all at once she began loading up a paper plate WHILE talking on and on. (It's worth mentioning here that, while everyone loved coming to our house and eating my mom's food, she was NOT a fancy host... I imagine brownies, turkey sandwiches, pickles, and maybe cheetos on display). Turquoise's mom piled high and deep. High and deep. And concluded it with a paper napkin, unfolded and draped over the top layer. Then, finally, off Turquoise and her mom went, perhaps to feed her whole neighborhood. My mom always told this story with warmth. I think she really did think Turquoise's mom was a stitch, just as I had always thought Turquoise was.
The reason I tell this story is because it stuck out to me that Turquoise and her mom were out of their element. I remember it took quite some time (over the phone! imagine that!) to give directions to their family to my house. And that, heck, since it was an ordeal to get there, maybe Turquoise's mom figured she may as well stay a bit. And get a meal in in the process. And maybe one for brother and sister. Although I had several black peers to my house over the remaining years I lived at home (SHOUT OUT TO HIGH SCHOOL TRACK AND FIELD END OF SEASON PARTIES!!!), this might have been the first, and it made me recognized how pale my whole neighborhood looked. I may have gone to a school that taught me the richness of socializing with lots of kids different than myself, but I came home every day to a lot of people looking just like me (except with a lot of wrinkles).
The High School Years
duPont Manual High School was a magnet school in our very large Jefferson County School system, meaning one had to apply in order to become accepted as a student there. It was located in downtown Louisville. If it helps at all, imagine my school bus snatched me up, got me to the local neighborhood high school (which would have been my assigned school) where I transferred sleepily to a different bus, and then made my way along interstate highway to my final destination, a Gothic-style three story building. The whole rigamarole lasted about an hour and a half (for other friends 2+).
It Was Worth. Every. Single. Minute. And then some.
My Manual experience held two magical qualities that I later came to discover were not to be found in most of my college and adult friends' high school experiences. The first magical quality was that everyone wanted to be there. They had written compelling essays and submitted detailed transcripts to ensure it was so. We wanted to be there to get smart, do well, and be successful both there and beyond. It wasn't spoken. It was in the air. In my insecure moments, the full-of-expectation air was sometimes hard to gulp, but - man - once airborne, greatness is viral.
The second was that it was wildly diverse. In. Every. Way. I do not know if this is true, but it felt to me that the minority populations combined came close to equalling the white population. Since it drew from the entire Jefferson County district (which is a very, very large place) and since neighborhood and proximity-to-building had nothing to do with how the demographics shook out, it was like the United Nations. Blacks, Indians, Asians, and on and on. Non-racially speaking, Manual also celebrated as one of its magnet programs The Youth Performing Arts School (YPAS), which drew in whimsical ballet-dancers, piano prodigies, theater nuts, and aspiring painters - so there was an artsy crowd, too, along with all the other typical-high-school subgroups: goth, gay, skater, computer geeks, pot-head, preps, jocks... held together by the common thread of wanting to get smart. This slice of heaven was where I called home for four beautiful years.
In addition to classes, I ran Cross Country and Track and Field all four of those years. And although my Cross Country Team was composed of only gangly, cooky runners who were white, my Track and Field experiences yielded lots of black friends. Two of my four years running distance for the Track team were under the leadership of a black coach. At some point Coach somehow got his hand on public transportation vouchers and transfers, allowing those who used it to get home free. Because my parents loved that I chose Manual but did NOT love what it was doing to their gas budget and personal time, I rode the public bus home most days (before my driver's license and beater car replaced it). I remember being the only white runner who stood in line when those were getting handed out. Again, part of my story.
While at Manual, I built social skills that made me feel confident talking to any single soul I wanted to talk to. I lifted weights and small talked on strength training days right next to Line-Backer-Looking shot-put throwers (did I mention I'm little?). High School was when I learned all sorts of super-un-important-but-interesting-to-me facts about black people's skin (it CAN get sunburnt) and hair (it is generally NOT washed every day) and was exposed to public display of gay affection and what people act like when they're high and that guys in ballet leotards in Calculus class can be totally fly. On longer bus trips to and fro track meets at different schools, I remember all of us athletes, exhausted from an afternoon exerting ourselves in humid-heat, found time to give shout-outs and high-fives to EACH member of the team, from the mostly-white 1 mile and 2 mile runners to the mostly-black 100 meter and 200 meter runners. And when it came time to pick a senior prom theme song, the Student Council Steering Committee, of which I held office, had bold conversations about how to make selections. In the end, it was voted on by the entire class, but the Steering Committee was responsible for the choices. I remember that it was very on the minds of leadership how not to pick songs that lent themselves too strongly to one population of students or another. We had LOTS of populations, so song-choice deliberation was tedious.
We could roll with differences at Manual High School. And race was just one of them.
I tell this story (of my general high school experience), because it frames my obsession with diversity ever since. It was like crack-cocaine. The growth I experienced from 1993-1997 had a lot to do with Magical Quality Number One. But I give Magical Quality Number Two the same, if not more, credit for the shaping of my launch-into-the-world status on graduation day. Truth be told, it was the hybrid of the two that formed Magical Quality Number Three: young people of every walk of life accepting each other and concurrently working toward the common high standard of greatness for themselves.
It Was Worth. Every. Single. Minute. And then some.
My Manual experience held two magical qualities that I later came to discover were not to be found in most of my college and adult friends' high school experiences. The first magical quality was that everyone wanted to be there. They had written compelling essays and submitted detailed transcripts to ensure it was so. We wanted to be there to get smart, do well, and be successful both there and beyond. It wasn't spoken. It was in the air. In my insecure moments, the full-of-expectation air was sometimes hard to gulp, but - man - once airborne, greatness is viral.
The second was that it was wildly diverse. In. Every. Way. I do not know if this is true, but it felt to me that the minority populations combined came close to equalling the white population. Since it drew from the entire Jefferson County district (which is a very, very large place) and since neighborhood and proximity-to-building had nothing to do with how the demographics shook out, it was like the United Nations. Blacks, Indians, Asians, and on and on. Non-racially speaking, Manual also celebrated as one of its magnet programs The Youth Performing Arts School (YPAS), which drew in whimsical ballet-dancers, piano prodigies, theater nuts, and aspiring painters - so there was an artsy crowd, too, along with all the other typical-high-school subgroups: goth, gay, skater, computer geeks, pot-head, preps, jocks... held together by the common thread of wanting to get smart. This slice of heaven was where I called home for four beautiful years.
In addition to classes, I ran Cross Country and Track and Field all four of those years. And although my Cross Country Team was composed of only gangly, cooky runners who were white, my Track and Field experiences yielded lots of black friends. Two of my four years running distance for the Track team were under the leadership of a black coach. At some point Coach somehow got his hand on public transportation vouchers and transfers, allowing those who used it to get home free. Because my parents loved that I chose Manual but did NOT love what it was doing to their gas budget and personal time, I rode the public bus home most days (before my driver's license and beater car replaced it). I remember being the only white runner who stood in line when those were getting handed out. Again, part of my story.
While at Manual, I built social skills that made me feel confident talking to any single soul I wanted to talk to. I lifted weights and small talked on strength training days right next to Line-Backer-Looking shot-put throwers (did I mention I'm little?). High School was when I learned all sorts of super-un-important-but-interesting-to-me facts about black people's skin (it CAN get sunburnt) and hair (it is generally NOT washed every day) and was exposed to public display of gay affection and what people act like when they're high and that guys in ballet leotards in Calculus class can be totally fly. On longer bus trips to and fro track meets at different schools, I remember all of us athletes, exhausted from an afternoon exerting ourselves in humid-heat, found time to give shout-outs and high-fives to EACH member of the team, from the mostly-white 1 mile and 2 mile runners to the mostly-black 100 meter and 200 meter runners. And when it came time to pick a senior prom theme song, the Student Council Steering Committee, of which I held office, had bold conversations about how to make selections. In the end, it was voted on by the entire class, but the Steering Committee was responsible for the choices. I remember that it was very on the minds of leadership how not to pick songs that lent themselves too strongly to one population of students or another. We had LOTS of populations, so song-choice deliberation was tedious.
We could roll with differences at Manual High School. And race was just one of them.
I tell this story (of my general high school experience), because it frames my obsession with diversity ever since. It was like crack-cocaine. The growth I experienced from 1993-1997 had a lot to do with Magical Quality Number One. But I give Magical Quality Number Two the same, if not more, credit for the shaping of my launch-into-the-world status on graduation day. Truth be told, it was the hybrid of the two that formed Magical Quality Number Three: young people of every walk of life accepting each other and concurrently working toward the common high standard of greatness for themselves.
The College Years
Columbus, OH
Total population: 787,000 Race breakdown: W: 61% B: 27% L: 5% A: 4%
Westerville, OH
Total population: 36,120 Race breakdown: W: 88% B: 6% L: 1% A: 2%
Even though I went to a big-ger high school, I knew pretty emphatically that I wanted a smaller undergraduate experience; big schools sort of made my head spin. And haven't I mentioned really preferring [intimate] dinner parties? Anonymity is for some. It is not for me. So my search quickly narrowed in on private schools. One of the first stats I looked up for each of the smaller universities I was considering was "% of minorities." I wanted people of color to be at my dinner party!!! Sadly, I learned quickly that single digit percentages were more the norm than double ones. In the end, I landed on Otterbein College (now University) in a small suburb (Westerville) outside Columbus, OH. It barely made it over the two-digit hump at 11% minorities at the time (that percentage has since grown dramatically). And it met all my other criteria... So Ohio bound I was.
When I first arrived, I wondered if I had misinterpreted the brochure. Did they mean eleven TOTAL??? Because I'm a little slow, it took me about a full year to recognize that most of my college-mates came from smaller Ohio towns. Even though they chided me for my southern draw and asked repeatedly whether I awoke to roosters back home every morning, the large sum of my Ohio mates were raised in far more rural settings than I. When I told them my bus hit the interstate to get me to high school every day, it about blew their minds. The interstate was how people arrived TO their towns. Not travelled within them.
So 11% minorities probably felt like the mother-load-of-diversity to them. But, for me, it seemed puny. You should have seen the extra-curricular group I joined, The Gospel Choir. We had soul, thanks to LaJoyce, our director, infusing it... but we were the whitest dang gospel choir I ever done seen. The racial-diversity-addiction I could thank my high school experience for was suffering major withdrawal. And, not sure if anyone is paying attention to the city stats, but Columbus's race-breakdown revealed a smaller white presence and bigger black presence than Louisville - which was NOT what I was experiencing. But, then again, I was insulated twice. Once, inside a suburb several miles further out from downtown Columbus than my old stomping grounds were to Louisville's city center. Second, inside my college campus's bubble. No car = I ate, slept, ran, studied, dreamed, sororitied, doughnut-ran Otterbein College. I tried not to notice, and - honestly - I became a very happy clam at Otterbein, even with one of my heart's longings being only partially met.
Then, one day, I met this guy. The-guy-that-became-my-husband, Scott Arthur. It was at the end of my college experience that we started dating... and for us, that meant long, long talks about EVERYTHING. He was one of the raised-in-a-small-Ohio-town guys, except - because of several moves - he was raised in several of them (his last residence before college was Logan, Ohio - Total Population 7,152... Race Breakdown: White 97%). As we evolved from fledgling romance to a richer and more vulnerable place, we began sinking our teeth into the tender-er topics. You better believe one of them was race. P.S. Scott is white. Did I say that? Anyhow, now you can picture him All White.
He did not share the optimistic outlook I did about race. For instance, when I talked about how communities and schools diverse with people of color were such beautiful and desirable things, he looked at me like I was literally flesh-and-blood Pollyanna herself. He challenged me by explaining that there were way too many things standing in the way of that reality. Although he didn't graduate with any black or browns in his high school class, by then he had already picked up on the public perception that the more minorities there were in a neighborhood or a school, the lower the quality of either experience. I was horrified and, quite frankly, not sure I liked what he had to say OR him at all. NO NO NO... I said. All you have to do is look at what the social fabric was at my high school. SEE? I didn't make that up. IT HAPPENED! I was THERE! He was interested to know my experience... and he did think it was beautiful. But he also thought it was very, very, very unusual and that it was perhaps naive to believe it to be as re-creatable as I did.
WAIT. Just as I felt that my mostly-homogeneous private college surroundings at the time were insulated, it may have been that my high school experience was just as bubble-like? I thought THAT was real. And THIS was superficial.
Which is it? Which is REAL? And if neither, WHAT THE HELL IS REAL!?
But then I got close to graduating and Getting A Job moved to front burner. So I tabled my existential crisis, and sent applications out... teaching applications to AmeriCorps and Columbus Public Schools, almost-but-decided-not-to entrance applications to seminary and graduate school in order to pursue psychology, and ultimately to Powell United Methodist Church for a Youth Director position.
Total population: 787,000 Race breakdown: W: 61% B: 27% L: 5% A: 4%
Westerville, OH
Total population: 36,120 Race breakdown: W: 88% B: 6% L: 1% A: 2%
Even though I went to a big-ger high school, I knew pretty emphatically that I wanted a smaller undergraduate experience; big schools sort of made my head spin. And haven't I mentioned really preferring [intimate] dinner parties? Anonymity is for some. It is not for me. So my search quickly narrowed in on private schools. One of the first stats I looked up for each of the smaller universities I was considering was "% of minorities." I wanted people of color to be at my dinner party!!! Sadly, I learned quickly that single digit percentages were more the norm than double ones. In the end, I landed on Otterbein College (now University) in a small suburb (Westerville) outside Columbus, OH. It barely made it over the two-digit hump at 11% minorities at the time (that percentage has since grown dramatically). And it met all my other criteria... So Ohio bound I was.
When I first arrived, I wondered if I had misinterpreted the brochure. Did they mean eleven TOTAL??? Because I'm a little slow, it took me about a full year to recognize that most of my college-mates came from smaller Ohio towns. Even though they chided me for my southern draw and asked repeatedly whether I awoke to roosters back home every morning, the large sum of my Ohio mates were raised in far more rural settings than I. When I told them my bus hit the interstate to get me to high school every day, it about blew their minds. The interstate was how people arrived TO their towns. Not travelled within them.
So 11% minorities probably felt like the mother-load-of-diversity to them. But, for me, it seemed puny. You should have seen the extra-curricular group I joined, The Gospel Choir. We had soul, thanks to LaJoyce, our director, infusing it... but we were the whitest dang gospel choir I ever done seen. The racial-diversity-addiction I could thank my high school experience for was suffering major withdrawal. And, not sure if anyone is paying attention to the city stats, but Columbus's race-breakdown revealed a smaller white presence and bigger black presence than Louisville - which was NOT what I was experiencing. But, then again, I was insulated twice. Once, inside a suburb several miles further out from downtown Columbus than my old stomping grounds were to Louisville's city center. Second, inside my college campus's bubble. No car = I ate, slept, ran, studied, dreamed, sororitied, doughnut-ran Otterbein College. I tried not to notice, and - honestly - I became a very happy clam at Otterbein, even with one of my heart's longings being only partially met.
Then, one day, I met this guy. The-guy-that-became-my-husband, Scott Arthur. It was at the end of my college experience that we started dating... and for us, that meant long, long talks about EVERYTHING. He was one of the raised-in-a-small-Ohio-town guys, except - because of several moves - he was raised in several of them (his last residence before college was Logan, Ohio - Total Population 7,152... Race Breakdown: White 97%). As we evolved from fledgling romance to a richer and more vulnerable place, we began sinking our teeth into the tender-er topics. You better believe one of them was race. P.S. Scott is white. Did I say that? Anyhow, now you can picture him All White.
He did not share the optimistic outlook I did about race. For instance, when I talked about how communities and schools diverse with people of color were such beautiful and desirable things, he looked at me like I was literally flesh-and-blood Pollyanna herself. He challenged me by explaining that there were way too many things standing in the way of that reality. Although he didn't graduate with any black or browns in his high school class, by then he had already picked up on the public perception that the more minorities there were in a neighborhood or a school, the lower the quality of either experience. I was horrified and, quite frankly, not sure I liked what he had to say OR him at all. NO NO NO... I said. All you have to do is look at what the social fabric was at my high school. SEE? I didn't make that up. IT HAPPENED! I was THERE! He was interested to know my experience... and he did think it was beautiful. But he also thought it was very, very, very unusual and that it was perhaps naive to believe it to be as re-creatable as I did.
WAIT. Just as I felt that my mostly-homogeneous private college surroundings at the time were insulated, it may have been that my high school experience was just as bubble-like? I thought THAT was real. And THIS was superficial.
Which is it? Which is REAL? And if neither, WHAT THE HELL IS REAL!?
But then I got close to graduating and Getting A Job moved to front burner. So I tabled my existential crisis, and sent applications out... teaching applications to AmeriCorps and Columbus Public Schools, almost-but-decided-not-to entrance applications to seminary and graduate school in order to pursue psychology, and ultimately to Powell United Methodist Church for a Youth Director position.
Out of College
Columbus, OH
Total population: 787,000 Race breakdown: W: 61% B: 27% L: 5% A: 4%
Powell, OH
Total population: 11,500 W: 88% B: 1% L: 1% A: 7%
Powell United Methodist Church is located in Powell, Ohio, a suburb even slightly further removed from Columbus's center. Powell had, at one time not so previous to my calling it home, been a farming town, rich with fields and barns and the like. By the time I worked there, it was quite the residential hub. Columbus executives were like fish in a barrel. It was [mostly] manicured, mall-and-retail-happy, and always providing the construction sounds of large, expansive homes going up.
The youth group that I served there was composed mostly of students in the Olentangy School System (although some Dublin or Worthington Cities), and the schools were populating rapidly with children of these [mostly] affluent Powell families. Since I was raised in a frugal home with nearly no name-brand things, I remember feeling initially very intimidated by teenage girls in my youth group who maintained acrylic nail manicures. Of course, everyone was lovely. Truly, lovely. If there is one thing I've learned, it's that people are people. I fell fiercely in love with my people (kids) at church, as it ought to be. Every single little white one of them.
I am setting the stage for a conversation I once had with some of my older youth. We had organized a first-summer-out-of-college gathering and I beamed as they each shared their coming-of-age experiences that first year in the adult world. Their adjustments had been without too much incident. However, one of the girls, Ashley, shared a thing that troubled her. She said that she felt it was a disservice to have been surrounded by nothing different from her in high school. She said her days at Olentangy High School did not put her in touch directly with any black kids (a few were there, just not in her classes). And, as a student at Miami University (private university in Oxford, OH), where - again - all of her particular classmates and doorm-mates shared white skin, she felt failed again. She confessed that she didn't know if she had had a conversation or interaction of any length with a black person in her life. And that, at the very least, the thought of having one left her feeling uncomfortable and intimidated. She was not being disrespectful or meaning anything disparagingly towards black individuals (like, for instance, that there was a reason to feel intimidated)... She was being honest. And, if anything, I think she felt despairingly towards herself, as a result.
I tell this story, because - although I had lived and worked with these students for two full years at that time - I hadn't connected the dots that PEOPLE ACTUALLY FEEL THIS WAY. Of course they would, though, when you look more closely at it, which Ashley made me do. And, to perpetuate things (and which Ashley was alluding to), when you get to a certain age and have not claimed mastery over something, there comes a point when it is natural to then avoid-that-thing. Like, "by now I should know this, but I don't. So I'll just put myself in situations where I won't have to actively not-know it." I actually do this with people who've introduced themselves to me more than two times, with whom I find myself often in public places, and whose name I either cannot seem to remember or cannot seem to pronounce. I stop attempting to get that information (THEIR CORRECT NAME), and just say, "Hi" in a noncommittal not-real-direct-eye-contact sort of way. So, could Ashley - now a young adult - be in a position of resignation, embarrassed about but accepting of the fact that she is and will always be not-comfortable around black people, not ever doing the real-eye-contact thing? If this is a real dilemma, which I know it is because Ashley is real (and pretty awesome), how many young white people have this in common?
Total population: 787,000 Race breakdown: W: 61% B: 27% L: 5% A: 4%
Powell, OH
Total population: 11,500 W: 88% B: 1% L: 1% A: 7%
Powell United Methodist Church is located in Powell, Ohio, a suburb even slightly further removed from Columbus's center. Powell had, at one time not so previous to my calling it home, been a farming town, rich with fields and barns and the like. By the time I worked there, it was quite the residential hub. Columbus executives were like fish in a barrel. It was [mostly] manicured, mall-and-retail-happy, and always providing the construction sounds of large, expansive homes going up.
The youth group that I served there was composed mostly of students in the Olentangy School System (although some Dublin or Worthington Cities), and the schools were populating rapidly with children of these [mostly] affluent Powell families. Since I was raised in a frugal home with nearly no name-brand things, I remember feeling initially very intimidated by teenage girls in my youth group who maintained acrylic nail manicures. Of course, everyone was lovely. Truly, lovely. If there is one thing I've learned, it's that people are people. I fell fiercely in love with my people (kids) at church, as it ought to be. Every single little white one of them.
I am setting the stage for a conversation I once had with some of my older youth. We had organized a first-summer-out-of-college gathering and I beamed as they each shared their coming-of-age experiences that first year in the adult world. Their adjustments had been without too much incident. However, one of the girls, Ashley, shared a thing that troubled her. She said that she felt it was a disservice to have been surrounded by nothing different from her in high school. She said her days at Olentangy High School did not put her in touch directly with any black kids (a few were there, just not in her classes). And, as a student at Miami University (private university in Oxford, OH), where - again - all of her particular classmates and doorm-mates shared white skin, she felt failed again. She confessed that she didn't know if she had had a conversation or interaction of any length with a black person in her life. And that, at the very least, the thought of having one left her feeling uncomfortable and intimidated. She was not being disrespectful or meaning anything disparagingly towards black individuals (like, for instance, that there was a reason to feel intimidated)... She was being honest. And, if anything, I think she felt despairingly towards herself, as a result.
I tell this story, because - although I had lived and worked with these students for two full years at that time - I hadn't connected the dots that PEOPLE ACTUALLY FEEL THIS WAY. Of course they would, though, when you look more closely at it, which Ashley made me do. And, to perpetuate things (and which Ashley was alluding to), when you get to a certain age and have not claimed mastery over something, there comes a point when it is natural to then avoid-that-thing. Like, "by now I should know this, but I don't. So I'll just put myself in situations where I won't have to actively not-know it." I actually do this with people who've introduced themselves to me more than two times, with whom I find myself often in public places, and whose name I either cannot seem to remember or cannot seem to pronounce. I stop attempting to get that information (THEIR CORRECT NAME), and just say, "Hi" in a noncommittal not-real-direct-eye-contact sort of way. So, could Ashley - now a young adult - be in a position of resignation, embarrassed about but accepting of the fact that she is and will always be not-comfortable around black people, not ever doing the real-eye-contact thing? If this is a real dilemma, which I know it is because Ashley is real (and pretty awesome), how many young white people have this in common?
My "Second" Job
Peace Corps, Namibia Africa...
Race Breakdown: W: 6% Coloured or Baster (mixed race): 4%
Total populations of the cities to which I traveled:
Otjiwarongo (28,249) and Okahandja (22,639) and Groot Aub (6,000)
Then, I joined the Peace Corps. I could write volumes about the two and a half months I lived and trained in Namibia, an African country just west of South Africa, but I won't. I'll only tell two stories.
The first is that one of the fellow American Peace Corps trainees was named Amona White. She slept in the dorm-style bunk room adjacent to mine where we volunteers were stationed temporarily to undergo the first session of training. She was the only black member of our group, beautiful, athletic-looking, feminine, and introspective. As always happens in camp-like situations (living together, eating together, experiencing bouts of diarrhea together... ), you begin gelling with your peeps. We girls, in those two rooms, found ourselves before bed - spoon in collective peanut butter jar, hair in pony tails on top of heads, feet dangling over bunk edge - sharing little bits of our lives with one another. We shared both our American lives from back home AND our experience of life in this crazy new place called Africa. Once many nights like this had passed, Amona chose a moment to share about what it felt like to be an African American in Africa. First, let's start with what she expected. She explained that, as she prepared to come to Africa for two years of service, somewhere in her consciousness existed this expectation of a homecoming of sorts... not with balloons, and confetti, and big posters reading, "WE LOVE YOU!!!" But a more subtle embracing into a larger community to which she belonged. She was fully American, but she was African by heritage, by all means. But what she experienced was about as opposite of belonging as possible. She actually felt shunned a bit...quite a bit. She said that it was her belief that the ripples of the Apartheid in Africa's southern countries (**primarily the country of South Africa, but Namibia, due west of it, was impacted as well), ending just nine years previous to our group's landing on Namibian soil, was to blame. That, although racism and persecution of black Africans by white Africans was at the root of the Apartheid movement, what came with it nearly a decade later was a certain unshakable revere towards white individuals. She couldn't believe it. She was shocked that the effects were most postively-affecting for white folks, instead of negatively-affecting. I sat there and listened, and thought, "Whites treated blacks in this region like scum. SCUM. And still make out like bandits. What gives?" I saw it in my own host family too, who were a mixed race. In the class system I observed while living with them, there was a superiority the lighter-skinned black Africans held. And, truth be told, there was outright racism from the light-skinned black Africans towards the more native, dark skinned Africans, insofar as their language and their ways were often made fun of (To be fair, there seemed to be infighting between most ethnic groups). And so, it seemed to me that not only was Amona not being celebrated for being the only black volunteer in our American group, she watched US WHITE VOLUNTEERS get treated preferentially. Had Amona not been a stoic soul, I would have wrapped my arms and legs around her and buried my head in her tank top that night and told her that I am sorry people have to SUCK as much as they do.
The second story from my time in Namibia was after language class one day. Vetendoah, one of our Namibian trainers, was hanging out with the volunteers during the free time we had stretched before us. By this time, I had lived in the country long enough - part of which involved the stint in the home of my host family where I went and did EVERYTHING they did - to recognize the strong Christian presence. I had attended Catholic mass with my host family, and it appeared also that all of the Namibia trainers exercised their Christian faith in one capacity or another. I asked Vetendoah, a little nervously, about whether there were any other religions prevalent there. I say "nervously," because the Christian faith-life of most Africans with which I had come into contact was rather rigid. It supported the literature about Namibia we got sent stateside expressing the importance of remaining like Switzerland when it came to religious discussions... basically, just hide anything non-mainstream-Christian so as to avoid major catastrophe. If you're gay, don't talk about it. If you're agnostic, don't talk about it. If - God forbid - you are atheist, DON'T TALK ABOUT IT. Vetendoah, not one to shy away from the truth, explained that there were still some who celebrated their more native spiritual traditions and rituals, often in small groups and often late at night so as to not cause a ruckus. I didn't ask, but I remember immediately imagining a big ole fire and dancing around it. She said, though, that the regular Sunday morning Christian worship was upheld faithfully as well. She also shared that most of the Namibians that she knew had a Christian name in addition to their real name. I asked her hers. I cannot remember what she said, but I remember it being something like "Samantha" or "Mary" or "Alice." And all the Christian names were like that. Although Vetendoah didn't seem to be, I was deeply troubled by this. I don't know the specifics of how the country of Namibia was exposed to Christianity in the beginning, but the European-sounding "Christian names" sure gave me a hint. Did missionaries (many light-skinned?) descend upon this place, seal the native people's fates in heaven with Christian names and Christian churches and Christian bibles, then take off? Forgive me for my ignorance on the matter, and for making Christian missionaries sound like awful people. But I can't sidestep what appears to be both a religious event and a racial event (Christian conversion of African people) all jumbled together. (Note: I am a Christian, a confused one most of the time, and sort of proud of that. But, considering my confusion, I'm pretty devout in my belief that Jesus taught us best how to live and love and that submission to God and His ways are what we're here to do.) I am sure missionaries sharing the Christian message had Jesus, great intentions, and purity in their hearts... And maybe that's what God wanted them to do with their time. But maybe it wasn't. After Vetendoah and I talked, this is what I played out in my head: white Christians with both Christian customs AND white customs evangelize to the African "savages" whose own connection to God (and even whose names) were Not Good Enough. I can't help but wonder if that also meant Not White Enough.
I tell these stories, because while race relations in Namibia, Africa are altogether different than that in the United States (apples, oranges), what followed me there was the same: whites seeming to get the better end of the deal (I know my experience was very isolated - a couple short months in a couple small Namibian towns - so please know that I know that this may not have been at all the case for other volunteers in my group or for other whites across the continent of Africa...but I'm me and these stories spoke to me in this way). Further perplexing, this was in a country where the race statistic were reversed! (United States: Blacks make up 13.2% of total population while whites make up 62.6%, Namibia: Blacks (of all different ethnic subgroups) make up 90% of total population while whites make up 4%). If anything, I was prepared to endure the experience of feeling an outsider, and being treated perhaps poorly as a result of it. The fact that I didn't was lovely, but the opposing result troubled me more.
Race Breakdown: W: 6% Coloured or Baster (mixed race): 4%
Total populations of the cities to which I traveled:
Otjiwarongo (28,249) and Okahandja (22,639) and Groot Aub (6,000)
Then, I joined the Peace Corps. I could write volumes about the two and a half months I lived and trained in Namibia, an African country just west of South Africa, but I won't. I'll only tell two stories.
The first is that one of the fellow American Peace Corps trainees was named Amona White. She slept in the dorm-style bunk room adjacent to mine where we volunteers were stationed temporarily to undergo the first session of training. She was the only black member of our group, beautiful, athletic-looking, feminine, and introspective. As always happens in camp-like situations (living together, eating together, experiencing bouts of diarrhea together... ), you begin gelling with your peeps. We girls, in those two rooms, found ourselves before bed - spoon in collective peanut butter jar, hair in pony tails on top of heads, feet dangling over bunk edge - sharing little bits of our lives with one another. We shared both our American lives from back home AND our experience of life in this crazy new place called Africa. Once many nights like this had passed, Amona chose a moment to share about what it felt like to be an African American in Africa. First, let's start with what she expected. She explained that, as she prepared to come to Africa for two years of service, somewhere in her consciousness existed this expectation of a homecoming of sorts... not with balloons, and confetti, and big posters reading, "WE LOVE YOU!!!" But a more subtle embracing into a larger community to which she belonged. She was fully American, but she was African by heritage, by all means. But what she experienced was about as opposite of belonging as possible. She actually felt shunned a bit...quite a bit. She said that it was her belief that the ripples of the Apartheid in Africa's southern countries (**primarily the country of South Africa, but Namibia, due west of it, was impacted as well), ending just nine years previous to our group's landing on Namibian soil, was to blame. That, although racism and persecution of black Africans by white Africans was at the root of the Apartheid movement, what came with it nearly a decade later was a certain unshakable revere towards white individuals. She couldn't believe it. She was shocked that the effects were most postively-affecting for white folks, instead of negatively-affecting. I sat there and listened, and thought, "Whites treated blacks in this region like scum. SCUM. And still make out like bandits. What gives?" I saw it in my own host family too, who were a mixed race. In the class system I observed while living with them, there was a superiority the lighter-skinned black Africans held. And, truth be told, there was outright racism from the light-skinned black Africans towards the more native, dark skinned Africans, insofar as their language and their ways were often made fun of (To be fair, there seemed to be infighting between most ethnic groups). And so, it seemed to me that not only was Amona not being celebrated for being the only black volunteer in our American group, she watched US WHITE VOLUNTEERS get treated preferentially. Had Amona not been a stoic soul, I would have wrapped my arms and legs around her and buried my head in her tank top that night and told her that I am sorry people have to SUCK as much as they do.
The second story from my time in Namibia was after language class one day. Vetendoah, one of our Namibian trainers, was hanging out with the volunteers during the free time we had stretched before us. By this time, I had lived in the country long enough - part of which involved the stint in the home of my host family where I went and did EVERYTHING they did - to recognize the strong Christian presence. I had attended Catholic mass with my host family, and it appeared also that all of the Namibia trainers exercised their Christian faith in one capacity or another. I asked Vetendoah, a little nervously, about whether there were any other religions prevalent there. I say "nervously," because the Christian faith-life of most Africans with which I had come into contact was rather rigid. It supported the literature about Namibia we got sent stateside expressing the importance of remaining like Switzerland when it came to religious discussions... basically, just hide anything non-mainstream-Christian so as to avoid major catastrophe. If you're gay, don't talk about it. If you're agnostic, don't talk about it. If - God forbid - you are atheist, DON'T TALK ABOUT IT. Vetendoah, not one to shy away from the truth, explained that there were still some who celebrated their more native spiritual traditions and rituals, often in small groups and often late at night so as to not cause a ruckus. I didn't ask, but I remember immediately imagining a big ole fire and dancing around it. She said, though, that the regular Sunday morning Christian worship was upheld faithfully as well. She also shared that most of the Namibians that she knew had a Christian name in addition to their real name. I asked her hers. I cannot remember what she said, but I remember it being something like "Samantha" or "Mary" or "Alice." And all the Christian names were like that. Although Vetendoah didn't seem to be, I was deeply troubled by this. I don't know the specifics of how the country of Namibia was exposed to Christianity in the beginning, but the European-sounding "Christian names" sure gave me a hint. Did missionaries (many light-skinned?) descend upon this place, seal the native people's fates in heaven with Christian names and Christian churches and Christian bibles, then take off? Forgive me for my ignorance on the matter, and for making Christian missionaries sound like awful people. But I can't sidestep what appears to be both a religious event and a racial event (Christian conversion of African people) all jumbled together. (Note: I am a Christian, a confused one most of the time, and sort of proud of that. But, considering my confusion, I'm pretty devout in my belief that Jesus taught us best how to live and love and that submission to God and His ways are what we're here to do.) I am sure missionaries sharing the Christian message had Jesus, great intentions, and purity in their hearts... And maybe that's what God wanted them to do with their time. But maybe it wasn't. After Vetendoah and I talked, this is what I played out in my head: white Christians with both Christian customs AND white customs evangelize to the African "savages" whose own connection to God (and even whose names) were Not Good Enough. I can't help but wonder if that also meant Not White Enough.
I tell these stories, because while race relations in Namibia, Africa are altogether different than that in the United States (apples, oranges), what followed me there was the same: whites seeming to get the better end of the deal (I know my experience was very isolated - a couple short months in a couple small Namibian towns - so please know that I know that this may not have been at all the case for other volunteers in my group or for other whites across the continent of Africa...but I'm me and these stories spoke to me in this way). Further perplexing, this was in a country where the race statistic were reversed! (United States: Blacks make up 13.2% of total population while whites make up 62.6%, Namibia: Blacks (of all different ethnic subgroups) make up 90% of total population while whites make up 4%). If anything, I was prepared to endure the experience of feeling an outsider, and being treated perhaps poorly as a result of it. The fact that I didn't was lovely, but the opposing result troubled me more.
First Teaching Jobs
Cleveland, OH.
Total population 396,815
Race Breakdown: W: 37% B: 53% L: 9% A:1%
Cleveland Heights (apartment living):
Total population: 44, 121
Race Breakdown: W: 49% B: 42% L: 1% A: 4%
Shaker Heights (first house):
Total population: 28,448
Race Breakdown: W: 54% B: 37% L: 2% A: 4%
I returned back from Africa earlier than I was supposed to in order to pursue a life with That Guy Scott. We had been broken up when I had applied to the Peace Corps and had rekindled our embers weeks before I left. By golly, distance does make the heart grow stronger. Damn him for wrecking my plans. After 2.5 months of Peace Corps training, I found myself back in the states driving myself to Cleveland, OH, where Scott lived, in search of math teaching jobs mid-year. I finished out that school year in the South-Euclid School system working with at-risk freshmen. The next year, I snagged a SWEET teaching job at Shaker Heights Middle School in the sought-after Shaker Heights School System, where I taught three levels of 7th grade math all day long: College Prep (behind), Middle-of-the-road (can't remember the actual name, but the curriculum was taught at-level), and Accelerated (I always had to study my lesson notes super hard, because these kiddos were bright and way above level). I loved teaching at Shaker Heights Middle School. It reminded me lots of my duPont Manual High School days and I felt I was RIGHT THERE IN THE MIDDLE OF IT... at the intersection of white and black families who elected to send their kids to a school system just as much because of the prestigious history of academic vigor as for the cultural experience. There was just one problem: Unlike my high school days where the demographics seemed to be more equally distributed among high-level classes and lower-level classes, my experience at Shaker was as follows: The middle-level class was a nice blend of races. Yet, there was only one black girl total in my collective Accelerated classes among the sea of white students and there was Not One White Face in my collective College Prep classes.
It was also while living and working in Shaker Heights that I learned about housing... I only know the following to be true, because it was openly discussed by teachers and administration: The white students mostly lived in houses in the community and the black students by and large were living in townhouse and apartments in patches throughout town. I do not know when it was that I personally began making associations between race and socio economics. Probably before this season of life... But this was the first time, as a new teacher, that I saw the race/ socio-economics piece coincide with academic performance. It was stark as I started out the school year, impossible to miss, and by the end of the year my thinking had normalized it to be "just how it is."
During the year teaching there, I worked extensively with my counterparts on professional development days updating the curriculum and pacing charts for those three tiers of 7th grade classes. There were four of us, two white women, one black man, and one black woman. The black woman was named Tracey. Tracy was a woman with a presence. She was a large woman, a smart woman, and an opinionated woman. She and I made no sense in some regards because of what little we had in common (short white running girl filled with optimism and naivety about her teaching career meets wise, seasoned, out-spoken black woman with seniority who has seen a lot go down as she's traveled around the block a few times - in her car), and in fact we had a couple rifts on account of these differing perspectives, but I found a kindredness in Tracey, too. Her ability to not take life too seriously. Oh, and her sarcasm. I definitely loved that woman's sarcasm. One day, during one of those professional development assignments (let the record show that classroom teachers ALMOST NEVER go "out" to lunch), we elected to take her car to grab a bite. It was just us three ladies at the time. And we had pulled up to a gas station while out. The car's conversation had just been about politics, for the 2004 presidential campaigns were heating up. With no trepidations (typical me), I asked her who she was voting for. She looked across at me like I was short a couple crayons from a full box. I said, "No seriously, WHO?" When she told me it was John Kerry, she left me to pump gas with these words, "You'd have to be dumb to be black and not be a democrat." BOOM. I do not know, still, how much credence to grant this statement, for Tracey is one black person, but it certainly caused me to pause. Frankly, I'm still pausing over that one.
When Spring was upon us that same year, and I had learned that I was moving back to Columbus, OH due to a job opportunity for Scott there, I remember being troubled about which school districts to apply to for a teaching job. Tracey found herself in my classroom one day, and when I shared that I loved my job at Shaker and loved the challenge of attempting to meet the diverse educational, emotional, and social needs of the lower kids' needs (because that was where my heart was), but that I was also EXHAUSTED after one year. That I didn't know if I could be a good teacher of at-risk or inner city populations (was considering Columbus Public again) if I too wanted to start a family. She told me this: "Go with the suburban school systems, Tricia. You will find that there are plenty of problems there that need you to help navigate their solution. You need to think about yourself and your family's needs, and there is nothing wrong with that. You won't regret it."
I know this is going to come out wrong, so I'll lead with that. But there was something about an educated black woman who had been-there-done-that in a public school with a robust black-and-somewhat-at-risk population encouraging me to take "an easier job" in the burbs that held more gravity and permission-giving to be released from my own virtuous standards than had it come from anyone else. And so, I ended up applying to the school system of my old stomping grounds: Olentangy Public Schools.
Before I move on to The Next Season of Life, I want to share about Scott's Cleveland adventures. The reason he was in Cleveland was to complete his graduate degree in Nonprofit Organizations at Case Western University. While taking classes, he got into cahoots with non-traditional (read: old) student John Zitzner, with whom he co-founded a nonprofit called E-City (Entrepreneurship: Connection, Inspiring, and Teaching Youth). E-City became the cornerstone of Scott's Cleveland experience. It was a nonprofit dedicated to teaching inner city Cleveland students (67% of whom are black) financial literacy and entrepreneurship skills. As the nonprofit gained momentum, John (who is white, btw) and Scott expanded the staff to include Nicole, a black student and acquaintance in one of Scott's graduate classes. Nicole evolved into a dear friend of both Scott's and mine over those few years. I mention Nicole, because - since teacher-colleague Tracey was a couple decades my senior and all my black students were a decade-and-change my junior - she was the only black peer I spent time with personally during my Cleveland days. And, she was the only black guest at our wedding a year later.
Since Scott and I left Cleveland, John Zitzner and staff have segwayed their mission from after school programming to building schools (John, Nicole, and Scott had concluded that E-City's mission was beautiful, but short-sighted... that, while meaningful to urban kids to better understand financial literacy in a theoretical sense for 2 hours per week, it wasn't moving the dial to translate that their overall life direction was altered for the better... John, never to let a small obstacle get in his way (the man is as tenacious as hell), redirected all efforts in order to produce a new baby: Breakthrough Schools. While still there, Scott learned a bunch in their research leading up to Breakthrough Schools' launching; the three of them traveling to many different urban school set-ups across the country THAT WORKED and PERFORMED HIGHLY. Here's what was shocking to me but consistently true nationwide: in order to have a significant impact on kids in low-income urban households and tumultuous surroundings, the students and their families must buy in to an unconventional school model involving long school hours (less time in their home/neighborhood culture), a longer school year (less summer in their home/neighborhood culture), a dress code (showing no clues of their home/neighborhood culture), and strict guidelines about what behaviors of success looked like and didn't look like (which often ran counter to their home/neighborhood culture). The entire two first weeks of each school year is dedicated to training school culture (it's boot camp), including how to shake an adult's hand, how to maintain eye contact during lessons, and that hallways passing time is to be done silently. It's no-nonsense. And a bit militant. But it works. See at: http://breakthroughschools.org/
We got married while living in Cleveland. We bought our first house in Shaker Heights in Cleveland. I broke into teaching in Cleveland. Cleveland was a place that I entered kicking and screaming (grieving my Peace Corps dreams, torn from everything I knew, finding it excessively difficult for my bubbly charm break through the social fabric of the communities there...most Cleveland folks I knew had all their friendship slots filled and were quite established there... transient new-comers they needed not), but then I found myself leaving kicking and screaming, too. The two years in-between had been enriching. There's one reason I know I came to love the city. Look at the stats. 53 % black. FIFTY THREE PERCENT (not to mention the rich ethnic landscape of many groups of immigrant Americans - Little Italy's smells were just a mile from my apartment at one time and the restaurants in general were plentiful and interesting, along with the people). Although most of my neighbors and new-found friends were white, there was a RICHNESS to Cleveland's diverse population that trickled down to me.
The reason I tell this story of our Cleveland time is because it cemented what most everyone in America somehow comes to know at one point or another. Large city school systems struggle more than suburban school systems and often more than rural systems. Furthermore, there is a connection between lower socio-economics and urban households sending their children to public school. And, finally, percentages of people of color in larger densely-populated cities are generally significantly higher than either in the suburbs of those cities or rural areas. Put all that together, and we've got struggling big city school systems educating low-income kiddos, many of whom are minorities. At least, that's what I observe to be true. That's serious. Really serious.
Total population 396,815
Race Breakdown: W: 37% B: 53% L: 9% A:1%
Cleveland Heights (apartment living):
Total population: 44, 121
Race Breakdown: W: 49% B: 42% L: 1% A: 4%
Shaker Heights (first house):
Total population: 28,448
Race Breakdown: W: 54% B: 37% L: 2% A: 4%
I returned back from Africa earlier than I was supposed to in order to pursue a life with That Guy Scott. We had been broken up when I had applied to the Peace Corps and had rekindled our embers weeks before I left. By golly, distance does make the heart grow stronger. Damn him for wrecking my plans. After 2.5 months of Peace Corps training, I found myself back in the states driving myself to Cleveland, OH, where Scott lived, in search of math teaching jobs mid-year. I finished out that school year in the South-Euclid School system working with at-risk freshmen. The next year, I snagged a SWEET teaching job at Shaker Heights Middle School in the sought-after Shaker Heights School System, where I taught three levels of 7th grade math all day long: College Prep (behind), Middle-of-the-road (can't remember the actual name, but the curriculum was taught at-level), and Accelerated (I always had to study my lesson notes super hard, because these kiddos were bright and way above level). I loved teaching at Shaker Heights Middle School. It reminded me lots of my duPont Manual High School days and I felt I was RIGHT THERE IN THE MIDDLE OF IT... at the intersection of white and black families who elected to send their kids to a school system just as much because of the prestigious history of academic vigor as for the cultural experience. There was just one problem: Unlike my high school days where the demographics seemed to be more equally distributed among high-level classes and lower-level classes, my experience at Shaker was as follows: The middle-level class was a nice blend of races. Yet, there was only one black girl total in my collective Accelerated classes among the sea of white students and there was Not One White Face in my collective College Prep classes.
It was also while living and working in Shaker Heights that I learned about housing... I only know the following to be true, because it was openly discussed by teachers and administration: The white students mostly lived in houses in the community and the black students by and large were living in townhouse and apartments in patches throughout town. I do not know when it was that I personally began making associations between race and socio economics. Probably before this season of life... But this was the first time, as a new teacher, that I saw the race/ socio-economics piece coincide with academic performance. It was stark as I started out the school year, impossible to miss, and by the end of the year my thinking had normalized it to be "just how it is."
During the year teaching there, I worked extensively with my counterparts on professional development days updating the curriculum and pacing charts for those three tiers of 7th grade classes. There were four of us, two white women, one black man, and one black woman. The black woman was named Tracey. Tracy was a woman with a presence. She was a large woman, a smart woman, and an opinionated woman. She and I made no sense in some regards because of what little we had in common (short white running girl filled with optimism and naivety about her teaching career meets wise, seasoned, out-spoken black woman with seniority who has seen a lot go down as she's traveled around the block a few times - in her car), and in fact we had a couple rifts on account of these differing perspectives, but I found a kindredness in Tracey, too. Her ability to not take life too seriously. Oh, and her sarcasm. I definitely loved that woman's sarcasm. One day, during one of those professional development assignments (let the record show that classroom teachers ALMOST NEVER go "out" to lunch), we elected to take her car to grab a bite. It was just us three ladies at the time. And we had pulled up to a gas station while out. The car's conversation had just been about politics, for the 2004 presidential campaigns were heating up. With no trepidations (typical me), I asked her who she was voting for. She looked across at me like I was short a couple crayons from a full box. I said, "No seriously, WHO?" When she told me it was John Kerry, she left me to pump gas with these words, "You'd have to be dumb to be black and not be a democrat." BOOM. I do not know, still, how much credence to grant this statement, for Tracey is one black person, but it certainly caused me to pause. Frankly, I'm still pausing over that one.
When Spring was upon us that same year, and I had learned that I was moving back to Columbus, OH due to a job opportunity for Scott there, I remember being troubled about which school districts to apply to for a teaching job. Tracey found herself in my classroom one day, and when I shared that I loved my job at Shaker and loved the challenge of attempting to meet the diverse educational, emotional, and social needs of the lower kids' needs (because that was where my heart was), but that I was also EXHAUSTED after one year. That I didn't know if I could be a good teacher of at-risk or inner city populations (was considering Columbus Public again) if I too wanted to start a family. She told me this: "Go with the suburban school systems, Tricia. You will find that there are plenty of problems there that need you to help navigate their solution. You need to think about yourself and your family's needs, and there is nothing wrong with that. You won't regret it."
I know this is going to come out wrong, so I'll lead with that. But there was something about an educated black woman who had been-there-done-that in a public school with a robust black-and-somewhat-at-risk population encouraging me to take "an easier job" in the burbs that held more gravity and permission-giving to be released from my own virtuous standards than had it come from anyone else. And so, I ended up applying to the school system of my old stomping grounds: Olentangy Public Schools.
Before I move on to The Next Season of Life, I want to share about Scott's Cleveland adventures. The reason he was in Cleveland was to complete his graduate degree in Nonprofit Organizations at Case Western University. While taking classes, he got into cahoots with non-traditional (read: old) student John Zitzner, with whom he co-founded a nonprofit called E-City (Entrepreneurship: Connection, Inspiring, and Teaching Youth). E-City became the cornerstone of Scott's Cleveland experience. It was a nonprofit dedicated to teaching inner city Cleveland students (67% of whom are black) financial literacy and entrepreneurship skills. As the nonprofit gained momentum, John (who is white, btw) and Scott expanded the staff to include Nicole, a black student and acquaintance in one of Scott's graduate classes. Nicole evolved into a dear friend of both Scott's and mine over those few years. I mention Nicole, because - since teacher-colleague Tracey was a couple decades my senior and all my black students were a decade-and-change my junior - she was the only black peer I spent time with personally during my Cleveland days. And, she was the only black guest at our wedding a year later.
Since Scott and I left Cleveland, John Zitzner and staff have segwayed their mission from after school programming to building schools (John, Nicole, and Scott had concluded that E-City's mission was beautiful, but short-sighted... that, while meaningful to urban kids to better understand financial literacy in a theoretical sense for 2 hours per week, it wasn't moving the dial to translate that their overall life direction was altered for the better... John, never to let a small obstacle get in his way (the man is as tenacious as hell), redirected all efforts in order to produce a new baby: Breakthrough Schools. While still there, Scott learned a bunch in their research leading up to Breakthrough Schools' launching; the three of them traveling to many different urban school set-ups across the country THAT WORKED and PERFORMED HIGHLY. Here's what was shocking to me but consistently true nationwide: in order to have a significant impact on kids in low-income urban households and tumultuous surroundings, the students and their families must buy in to an unconventional school model involving long school hours (less time in their home/neighborhood culture), a longer school year (less summer in their home/neighborhood culture), a dress code (showing no clues of their home/neighborhood culture), and strict guidelines about what behaviors of success looked like and didn't look like (which often ran counter to their home/neighborhood culture). The entire two first weeks of each school year is dedicated to training school culture (it's boot camp), including how to shake an adult's hand, how to maintain eye contact during lessons, and that hallways passing time is to be done silently. It's no-nonsense. And a bit militant. But it works. See at: http://breakthroughschools.org/
We got married while living in Cleveland. We bought our first house in Shaker Heights in Cleveland. I broke into teaching in Cleveland. Cleveland was a place that I entered kicking and screaming (grieving my Peace Corps dreams, torn from everything I knew, finding it excessively difficult for my bubbly charm break through the social fabric of the communities there...most Cleveland folks I knew had all their friendship slots filled and were quite established there... transient new-comers they needed not), but then I found myself leaving kicking and screaming, too. The two years in-between had been enriching. There's one reason I know I came to love the city. Look at the stats. 53 % black. FIFTY THREE PERCENT (not to mention the rich ethnic landscape of many groups of immigrant Americans - Little Italy's smells were just a mile from my apartment at one time and the restaurants in general were plentiful and interesting, along with the people). Although most of my neighbors and new-found friends were white, there was a RICHNESS to Cleveland's diverse population that trickled down to me.
The reason I tell this story of our Cleveland time is because it cemented what most everyone in America somehow comes to know at one point or another. Large city school systems struggle more than suburban school systems and often more than rural systems. Furthermore, there is a connection between lower socio-economics and urban households sending their children to public school. And, finally, percentages of people of color in larger densely-populated cities are generally significantly higher than either in the suburbs of those cities or rural areas. Put all that together, and we've got struggling big city school systems educating low-income kiddos, many of whom are minorities. At least, that's what I observe to be true. That's serious. Really serious.
I tell the Breakthrough Schools back-story, because it showed me the crazy-high number of families, mostly black, who were hungering for a better school for their kids, even when what they were signing up for meant a complete override of their sons/daughters lives up to that point. Parents were lining up for the opportunity to have their kids... for lack of a better word... hijacked. Because it meant that they would escape what would otherwise be a common future for at-risk city kids: school drop-out, poverty, crime, and all that goes with it. It showed me the opposite of complacency. These parents were willing, honest-about-their-situations, and desperate for another way.
First teaching Jobs in Cleveland and then Back to Columbus, OH
Cleveland, OH.
Total population 396,815
Race Breakdown: W: 37% B: 53% L: 9% A:1%
Cleveland Heights (apartment living):
Total population: 44, 121
Race Breakdown: W: 49% B: 42% L: 1% A: 4%
Shaker Heights (first house):
Total population: 28,448
Race Breakdown: W: 54% B: 37% L: 2% A: 4%
I returned back from Africa earlier than I was supposed to in order to pursue a life with That Guy Scott. We had been broken up when I had applied to the Peace Corps and had rekindled our embers weeks before I left. By golly, distance does make the heart grow stronger. Damn him for wrecking my plans. After 2.5 months of Peace Corps training, I found myself back in the states driving myself to Cleveland, OH, where Scott lived, in search of math teaching jobs mid-year. I finished out that school year in the South-Euclid School system working with at-risk freshmen. The next year, I snagged a SWEET teaching job at Shaker Heights Middle School in the sought-after Shaker Heights School System, where I taught three levels of 7th grade math all day long: College Prep (behind), Middle-of-the-road (can't remember the actual name, but the curriculum was taught at-level), and Accelerated (I always had to study my lesson notes super hard, because these kiddos were bright and way above level). I loved teaching at Shaker Heights Middle School. It reminded me lots of my duPont Manual High School days and I felt I was RIGHT THERE IN THE MIDDLE OF IT... at the intersection of white and black families who elected to send their kids to a school system just as much because of the prestigious history of academic vigor as for the cultural experience. There was just one problem: Unlike my high school days where the demographics seemed to be more equally distributed among high-level classes and lower-level classes, my experience at Shaker was as follows: The middle-level class was a nice blend of races. Yet, there was only one black girl total in my collective Accelerated classes among the sea of white students and there was Not One White Face in my collective College Prep classes.
It was also while living and working in Shaker Heights that I learned about housing... I only know the following to be true, because it was openly discussed by teachers and administration: The white students mostly lived in houses in the community and the black students by and large were living in townhouse and apartments in patches throughout town. I do not know when it was that I personally began making associations between race and socio economics. Probably before this season of life... But this was the first time, as a new teacher, that I saw the race/ socio-economics piece coincide with academic performance. It was stark as I started out the school year, impossible to miss, and by the end of the year my thinking had normalized it to be "just how it is."
During the year teaching there, I worked extensively with my counterparts on professional development days updating the curriculum and pacing charts for those three tiers of 7th grade classes. There were four of us, two white women, one black man, and one black woman. The black woman was named Tracey. Tracy was a woman with a presence. She was a large woman, a smart woman, and an opinionated woman. She and I made no sense in some regards because of what little we had in common (short white running girl filled with optimism and naivety about her teaching career meets wise, seasoned, out-spoken black woman with seniority who has seen a lot go down as she's traveled around the block a few times - in her car), and in fact we had a couple rifts on account of these differing perspectives, but I found a kindredness in Tracey, too. Her ability to not take life too seriously. Oh, and her sarcasm. I definitely loved that woman's sarcasm. One day, during one of those professional development assignments (let the record show that classroom teachers ALMOST NEVER go "out" to lunch), we elected to take her car to grab a bite. It was just us three ladies at the time. And we had pulled up to a gas station while out. The car's conversation had just been about politics, for the 2004 presidential campaigns were heating up. With no trepidations (typical me), I asked her who she was voting for. She looked across at me like I was short a couple crayons from a full box. I said, "No seriously, WHO?" When she told me it was John Kerry, she left me to pump gas with these words, "You'd have to be dumb to be black and not be a democrat." BOOM. I do not know, still, how much credence to grant this statement, for Tracey is one black person, but it certainly caused me to pause. Frankly, I'm still pausing over that one.
When Spring was upon us that same year, and I had learned that I was moving back to Columbus, OH due to a job opportunity for Scott there, I remember being troubled about which school districts to apply to for a teaching job. Tracey found herself in my classroom one day, and when I shared that I loved my job at Shaker and loved the challenge of attempting to meet the diverse educational, emotional, and social needs of the lower kids' needs (because that was where my heart was), but that I was also EXHAUSTED after one year. That I didn't know if I could be a good teacher of at-risk or inner city populations (was considering Columbus Public again) if I too wanted to start a family. She told me this: "Go with the suburban school systems, Tricia. You will find that there are plenty of problems there that need you to help navigate their solution. You need to think about yourself and your family's needs, and there is nothing wrong with that. You won't regret it."
I know this is going to come out wrong, so I'll lead with that. But there was something about an educated black woman who had been-there-done-that in a public school with a robust black-and-somewhat-at-risk population encouraging me to take "an easier job" in the burbs that held more gravity and permission-giving to be released from my own virtuous standards than had it come from anyone else. And so, I ended up applying to the school system of my old stomping grounds: Olentangy Public Schools.
Before I move on to The Next Season of Life, I want to share about Scott's Cleveland adventures. The reason he was in Cleveland was to complete his graduate degree in Nonprofit Organizations at Case Western University. While taking classes, he got into cahoots with non-traditional (read: old) student John Zitzner, with whom he co-founded a nonprofit called E-City (Entrepreneurship: Connection, Inspiring, and Teaching Youth). E-City became the cornerstone of Scott's Cleveland experience. It was a nonprofit dedicated to teaching inner city Cleveland students (67% of whom are black) financial literacy and entrepreneurship skills. As the nonprofit gained momentum, John (who is white, btw) and Scott expanded the staff to include Nicole, a black student and acquaintance in one of Scott's graduate classes. Nicole evolved into a dear friend of both Scott's and mine over those few years. I mention Nicole, because - since teacher-colleague Tracey was a couple decades my senior and all my black students were a decade-and-change my junior - she was the only black peer I spent time with personally during my Cleveland days. And, she was the only black guest at our wedding a year later.
Since Scott and I left Cleveland, John Zitzner and staff have segwayed their mission from after school programming to building schools (John, Nicole, and Scott had concluded that E-City's mission was beautiful, but short-sighted... that, while meaningful to urban kids to better understand financial literacy in a theoretical sense for 2 hours per week, it wasn't moving the dial to translate that their overall life direction was altered for the better... John, never to let a small obstacle get in his way - the man is as tenacious as hell - redirected all efforts in order to produce a new baby: Breakthrough Schools). While still there, Scott learned a bunch in their research leading up to Breakthrough Schools' launching; the three of them traveling to many different urban school set-ups across the country THAT WORKED and PERFORMED HIGHLY. Here's what was shocking to me but consistently true nationwide: in order to have a significant impact on kids in low-income urban households with tumultuous surroundings, the students and their families must buy in to an unconventional school model involving long school hours (less time in their home/neighborhood culture), a longer school year (less summer in their home/neighborhood culture), a dress code (showing no clues of their home/neighborhood culture), and strict guidelines about what behaviors of success looked like and didn't look like (which often ran counter to their home/neighborhood culture). The entire two first weeks of each school year is dedicated to training school culture (it's boot camp), including how to shake an adult's hand, how to maintain eye contact during lessons, and that hallways passing time is to be done silently. It's no-nonsense. And a bit militant. But it works. See at: http://breakthroughschools.org/
We got married while living in Cleveland. We bought our first house in Shaker Heights in Cleveland. I broke into teaching in Cleveland. Cleveland was a place that I entered kicking and screaming (grieving my Peace Corps dreams, torn from everything I knew, finding it excessively difficult for my bubbly charm break through the social fabric of the communities there...most Cleveland folks I knew had all their friendship slots filled and were quite established there... transient new-comers they needed not), but then I found myself leaving kicking and screaming, too. The two years in-between had been enriching. There's one reason I know I came to love the city. Look at the stats. 53 % black. FIFTY THREE PERCENT (not to mention the rich ethnic landscape of many groups of immigrant Americans - Little Italy's smells were just a mile from my apartment at one time and the restaurants in general were plentiful and interesting, along with the people). Although most of my neighbors and new-found friends were white, there was a RICHNESS to Cleveland's diverse population that trickled down to me.
The reason I tell this story of our Cleveland time is because it cemented what most everyone in America somehow comes to know at one point or another. Large city school systems struggle more than suburban school systems and often more than rural systems. Furthermore, there is a connection between lower socio-economics and urban households sending their children to public school. And, finally, percentages of people of color in larger densely-populated cities are generally significantly higher than either in the suburbs of those cities or rural areas. Put all that together, and we've got struggling big city school systems educating low-income kiddos, many of whom are minorities. At least, that's what I observe to be true. That's serious. Really serious.
I tell the Breakthrough Schools back-story, because it showed me the crazy-high number of families, mostly black, who were hungering for a better school for their kids, even when what they were signing up for meant a complete override of their sons/daughters lives up to that point. Parents were lining up for the opportunity to have their kids... for lack of a better word... hijacked. Because it meant that they would escape what would otherwise be a common future for at-risk city kids: school drop-out, poverty, crime, and all that goes with it. It showed me the opposite of complacency. These parents were willing, honest-about-their-situations, and desperate for another way.
BACK TO COLUMBUS, OH
Total population: 787,000 Race breakdown: W: 61% B: 27% L: 5%A: 4%
The four years we spent back in Columbus, the place of our Alma Mater and where we first became a couple, were relatively uneventful, racially speaking. We ended up settling in an inner-ring suburb called Clintonville which we loved, and, whose schools fell within the Columbus Public Schools boundaries. As we were beginning our family, Scott and I had lots of conversations about whether we would move to a different burb before our kids were school-aged or stay in the expansive, urban school district that contained some lovely, high-performing pockets (Clintonville being one of them), but was also full of less-than-awesome overall ratings.
Scott worked at a private K-12 school in Upper Arlington, and I worked as a math teacher in the Olentangy School System. And we attended worship at Worthington Presbyterian Church. Homogenous. Homogenous. And homogenous. I remember the over-simplified metaphor I used, when asked about the comparison of Cleveland to Columbus: Cleveland was like rocky road and Columbus is vanilla. There was a richer and more scrumptious way about Cleveland, for me. Columbus has it's own corner on diversity, but - for me - it didn't touch Cleveland's.
Rochester, MN
Total Population: 106,000
Race breakdown: W: 81% B: 6% H: 5% A: 6%
Rochester, a small town about 1.25 hours southwest of the Twin Cities, is a funky little place. It is (barely) on the map only because of The Mayo Clinic, an international medical destination. To give you an example of this, what 100,000 person town do you know with an INTERNATIONAL airport. People from Saudi Arabia and San Diego and Brazil all come to Mayo when no one else can fix their bodies. This is important information, because, although I think a small town such as Rochester would normally suffocate me, three was a rhobustness about it due to the power-house of Mayo. More restaurants, more establishments, more shopping, more highly educated people, more stoplights than had it been any other 100,000 person town. Still, it was surrounded by fields of soybeans and corn. And, still, look at the percentage of whites. This was by far the whitest place I had ever lived.
We lived there for 3.5 years. Scott worked at the Mayo Clinic as a development professional and I busied myself with raising our growing family and working part-time at one of the middle schools in the Rochester School system, the only one there was. I remember the culture shock of less African Americans. But, from the school standpoint, what the population lacked in African Americans students, it made up for in African refugees students. The basement classroom I taught in for half the day was where practicing Muslim students (often refugees) could go to in place of the cafeteria during fasting religious holidays. I would have my planning period during this time and often be found at my desk plugging in grades, while Mr. Nur, the Somolian teacher charged with their oversight, would welcome these students by name and exchange banter, often a mix of English and the language they shared. I feel embarrassed that I don't know more about the refugees' connections to Minnesota, much less Rochester. But many of them, I recall, had gone through a lot. Several of my own African students had spent numerous years before their move to the states in Egypt and other not-their-home-country countries seeking a place to live that wasn't worn torn. Although there definitely was a bit of segregation between the white students and the refugee students when left to socialize on their own, I was incredibly happily surprised at how well the classroom setting worked. The headdresses and holiday-observation and accents and everything else different about these Africans was overall well respected.
I tell this story, because it was my first exposure to a population of people in America who were born in Africa. I remember time and time again, when describing a student to another teacher or analyzing subgroup scores in a teacher meeting, having to suck back in the words "African American" when I really meant "African." I grew up learning to refer to all black people in this country as "African American." In Rochester, I was seeing two faces of the black community, those whose families had been living in this country for generation upon generation: African American... and those born in Africa and who were fiercely and desperately learning how to be American.
Race breakdown: W: 81% B: 6% H: 5% A: 6%
Rochester, a small town about 1.25 hours southwest of the Twin Cities, is a funky little place. It is (barely) on the map only because of The Mayo Clinic, an international medical destination. To give you an example of this, what 100,000 person town do you know with an INTERNATIONAL airport. People from Saudi Arabia and San Diego and Brazil all come to Mayo when no one else can fix their bodies. This is important information, because, although I think a small town such as Rochester would normally suffocate me, three was a rhobustness about it due to the power-house of Mayo. More restaurants, more establishments, more shopping, more highly educated people, more stoplights than had it been any other 100,000 person town. Still, it was surrounded by fields of soybeans and corn. And, still, look at the percentage of whites. This was by far the whitest place I had ever lived.
We lived there for 3.5 years. Scott worked at the Mayo Clinic as a development professional and I busied myself with raising our growing family and working part-time at one of the middle schools in the Rochester School system, the only one there was. I remember the culture shock of less African Americans. But, from the school standpoint, what the population lacked in African Americans students, it made up for in African refugees students. The basement classroom I taught in for half the day was where practicing Muslim students (often refugees) could go to in place of the cafeteria during fasting religious holidays. I would have my planning period during this time and often be found at my desk plugging in grades, while Mr. Nur, the Somolian teacher charged with their oversight, would welcome these students by name and exchange banter, often a mix of English and the language they shared. I feel embarrassed that I don't know more about the refugees' connections to Minnesota, much less Rochester. But many of them, I recall, had gone through a lot. Several of my own African students had spent numerous years before their move to the states in Egypt and other not-their-home-country countries seeking a place to live that wasn't worn torn. Although there definitely was a bit of segregation between the white students and the refugee students when left to socialize on their own, I was incredibly happily surprised at how well the classroom setting worked. The headdresses and holiday-observation and accents and everything else different about these Africans was overall well respected.
I tell this story, because it was my first exposure to a population of people in America who were born in Africa. I remember time and time again, when describing a student to another teacher or analyzing subgroup scores in a teacher meeting, having to suck back in the words "African American" when I really meant "African." I grew up learning to refer to all black people in this country as "African American." In Rochester, I was seeing two faces of the black community, those whose families had been living in this country for generation upon generation: African American... and those born in Africa and who were fiercely and desperately learning how to be American.
Back to Columbus, AGAIN
Columbus, OH: Total population: 787,000
Race breakdown: W: 61% B: 27% L: 5% A: 4%
Upper Arlington: Total population: 33,771
Race Breakdown: W: 92% B: less than 1% L: 1% A: 4%
Then, we moved again. Back to Columbus. Scott was offered a position at Nationwide Children's Hospital, also in development, and for this transition, pregnant with our third, I decided to put teaching on hold. I became an all-the-way-stay-at-home mom, so getting our neighborhood selection right was super-important in my book. We ended up choosing Upper Arlington, yet again, another inner ring suburb to Columbus's center. Inner ring suburbs, we came to find out, were our thing. They mean less land and houses closer together and less spacious bedrooms (well, ALL rooms) and somehow that all equals out to MORE COST. But it has always been worth it, in Scott and my minds', to say no to size and yes to location. We're burb-y but not THAT burb-y. I remember having a panic-attack, though when we were preparing to sign the contract for our house... UPPER ARLINGTON IS SO WHITE. 92% white, in fact. AND SO AFFLUENT. The median household income was 92K.
I remember a conversation with a dear friend Katie at the time. "My kids won't have ANYthing close to what I had when I was growing up if we send them to this school system!" What I meant was: They'll miss out on the richness of socializing with diverse populations, they'll think that it's normal to have fancy birthday parties with ponies (*we never, during our Upper Arlington residence, went to a birthday party with a pony present, but you get the sentiment*), they'll be entitled little white snots. She comforted me, "Tricia, it's you and Scott who form their outlook on the world. Sure, their surroundings do too, but you'll always supplement with other experiences and not let them be so one-dimensional." Truthfully, I'm not sure exactly what she said, but it was something like that. My own hopeful self-talk may have filled in some holes.
Upper Arlington, just like every other place we lived, was great. Katie was right in a lot of ways. Although Upper Arlington was rather insulated, surrounding it was the largest public university in the country, The Ohio State University. One mile that-way-ward from our house was a movie theater and retail space (the Lennox) which brought college students and Columbus peeps together with Arlingtonians (and Grandvillians) to form a pretty decently diverse little hub. And the church we chose, King Avenue United Methodist Church would find us sharing the pew with gays, blacks, latinos, straights, white-hairs, sorority sisters, transvestites, internationally adopted kiddos, and about everything inbetween.
As for U.A. itself, I had heard rumors that the social fabric of Upper Arlington lifers (those who had grown there and either never left or returned and had a network) was a tough one to break into, yet I found everyone to be kind and welcoming. I do remember wondering, though, whether that would have been the experience if I were not white. The only black people I saw in U.A. were mowing lawns, and that is not an exaggeration. It disheartened me - FAR from what I imagined in my early 20s - but, then again, I was up to my eyeballs in life and spit-up and diapers. And it was a happy life. So, I hung my hat on what we were offering our kids at church and Target, and then went to go change another diaper.
Race breakdown: W: 61% B: 27% L: 5% A: 4%
Upper Arlington: Total population: 33,771
Race Breakdown: W: 92% B: less than 1% L: 1% A: 4%
Then, we moved again. Back to Columbus. Scott was offered a position at Nationwide Children's Hospital, also in development, and for this transition, pregnant with our third, I decided to put teaching on hold. I became an all-the-way-stay-at-home mom, so getting our neighborhood selection right was super-important in my book. We ended up choosing Upper Arlington, yet again, another inner ring suburb to Columbus's center. Inner ring suburbs, we came to find out, were our thing. They mean less land and houses closer together and less spacious bedrooms (well, ALL rooms) and somehow that all equals out to MORE COST. But it has always been worth it, in Scott and my minds', to say no to size and yes to location. We're burb-y but not THAT burb-y. I remember having a panic-attack, though when we were preparing to sign the contract for our house... UPPER ARLINGTON IS SO WHITE. 92% white, in fact. AND SO AFFLUENT. The median household income was 92K.
I remember a conversation with a dear friend Katie at the time. "My kids won't have ANYthing close to what I had when I was growing up if we send them to this school system!" What I meant was: They'll miss out on the richness of socializing with diverse populations, they'll think that it's normal to have fancy birthday parties with ponies (*we never, during our Upper Arlington residence, went to a birthday party with a pony present, but you get the sentiment*), they'll be entitled little white snots. She comforted me, "Tricia, it's you and Scott who form their outlook on the world. Sure, their surroundings do too, but you'll always supplement with other experiences and not let them be so one-dimensional." Truthfully, I'm not sure exactly what she said, but it was something like that. My own hopeful self-talk may have filled in some holes.
Upper Arlington, just like every other place we lived, was great. Katie was right in a lot of ways. Although Upper Arlington was rather insulated, surrounding it was the largest public university in the country, The Ohio State University. One mile that-way-ward from our house was a movie theater and retail space (the Lennox) which brought college students and Columbus peeps together with Arlingtonians (and Grandvillians) to form a pretty decently diverse little hub. And the church we chose, King Avenue United Methodist Church would find us sharing the pew with gays, blacks, latinos, straights, white-hairs, sorority sisters, transvestites, internationally adopted kiddos, and about everything inbetween.
As for U.A. itself, I had heard rumors that the social fabric of Upper Arlington lifers (those who had grown there and either never left or returned and had a network) was a tough one to break into, yet I found everyone to be kind and welcoming. I do remember wondering, though, whether that would have been the experience if I were not white. The only black people I saw in U.A. were mowing lawns, and that is not an exaggeration. It disheartened me - FAR from what I imagined in my early 20s - but, then again, I was up to my eyeballs in life and spit-up and diapers. And it was a happy life. So, I hung my hat on what we were offering our kids at church and Target, and then went to go change another diaper.
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