Due to the developments we mentioned a couple weeks ago, my daughter will be going to a different school in the fall. Only thing is, she’s nervous about going. That, in and of itself is no cause for concern, because everybody’s nervous when they start a new school. Just about everybody I’ve ever known, at least. Naw, what’s got me concerned is the reason that she’s more nervous than normal. This is going to be her first time going to a school that’s not almost all-Black.
It’s weird for me to even be considering this question, because it wasn’t until college that I even had any classes where all the students were Black, and I think there were only one or two of those. And they were Af Am Studies courses. So in a very real way, her concern is kinda foreign to me. At the same time, I know exactly how she feels, because the only times I’ve ever been in situations where I was the only brother in the room have been involuntary. If you were to tell me ahead of time that I was gonna be a fly in the buttermilk, I would probably be decidedly less-than-enthusiastic. Or at least, less enthusiastic than I would be with a different demographic ratio. But the thing is, I’ve never talked to her about that. I’ve never talked to her about race at all. (Now in the interest of full disclosure, the fact that I’m the non-custodial parent limits my influence somewhat. The fact that she lives a pretty good distance away limits my influence even further, but based on what I know of her mom, it’s still highly unlikely that she’s having “watch-out-for-the-white-man” conversations.) So given that, I’m curious about how her racial ideas formed. Since I’m pretty sure they weren’t implicitly taught, she must have picked them up on the side somewhere. I’m wondering where.
Even more than I wonder where she got them, though, I’m wondering what to tell her. See this goes directly to what I was talkin about in my last post. Do I believe that most white people are personally racist? Of course not. Do I believe that some are? Absolutely. The question is, how do we inure her against the latter without making her suspicious of everybody else? But even aside from that, how do we make sure she understands that some people who are white may not like her, and it may have nothing to do with that fact that she’s Black? That second one, that’s the big question. I know a lotta grown-ups who have yet to figure that one out.
I guess we’ll figure this one out as we go along.
Entries (RSS)