Sociologist Becomes Teacher

This week, the 8th grade had research papers for history class. They were due Friday, which meant, of course, that Wednesday people started research, and Thursday they wrote papers. Each of those days, I got a group of 8th graders in the library to work with me on their papers. Wednesday, the topic count stood: slavery 3; Middle Passage 2; the lost colony of Roanoke 1. So, unsurprisingly (especially since at least one of the girls came to the library to talk, not work), the research party turned into a discussion. I let it go, however, because it was the first time these girls had talked openly to me about race.

My main talker wanted to know why black people fought black people, when they had come through so much to get where they are today. She also said that she didn't understand people who threw away their opportunity at an education, when their ancestors had fought hard for it. The other girls chimed in, complaining about the lack of leadership from authority figures : for example a black mayor who refused to change the times that clubs were open, in spite of the crime rate that might be reduced by earlier closings.

Then someone came up with the idea of a play, to show their classmates visually what their people had gone through. Another girl had the astute thought that for something to make an impact, they needed to take it to DC. For a second, I thought they were ready to plan a march, but they narrowed down to a petition. I explained 1) that petitions didn't just appear, someone (such as themselves) had to write it; 2) they would need to figure out something more specific than "we want racism to end," if they wanted to make a petition; and 3) there was no reason why they couldn't. Or, we concluded, if they made a play, they could videotape it and send it to Obama.

Because I'm the white teacher, I don't hear very often what my students have to say about race. Even in this impassioned discussion, I got a lot of "I'm sorry"s and "no offense, but"s. So this conversation gave me an insight into how my students perceive and live their race. For them, it seemed that race was more poignant than gender. No one talked about the fact that after slavery ended, only men got the vote. No one talked about the ways that being a black woman was different from being a black man -- in spite of the fact that they used gender-charged language in their discussion, showing that they at least subconsciously picked up on the differences. In all my sociology courses, we talked about how people experience class, age, race, gender, and sexuality, but never about how one becomes more important than another.

I wanted to probe it further to see if and how they thought about class and gender, but the teacher kicked in over the sociologist. Rather than impressing upon them how they were oppressed in another way, I asked questions about how they can change things and how they are going to succeed in the world as is. To my joy, despite the language of oppression, these girls have every confidence that they can take life for all it's worth -- one big fat "gives me hope."