Blog Your Blessings: My Gratitude to the Liberal White Bigot

She was so white she was blue. A teacher. A colleague of sorts from across town except that she worked up on the hill in a private school, and I worked in, as the children say, a ghetto school across that vast brown field called Waterbury. We sat within shouting distance of each other at a child's politically correct birthday party. I had said hello, and we exchanged pleasantries about where we worked and how many children we had at home and in our classrooms.

Upon hearing I worked at a public middle school across town from where she worked, she remarked, "I always wanted to work in the inner city--I studied social work and psychology--but I found a job at this [elite, upscale, very white, expensive, and did I say, private] school....."

Alas.

Social work. Psychology. Why, I wondered? To take notes on the way young, possibly neglected, urban life forms peel bananas?

"But we partner with [an alternative elementary school full of poor minority children], and it really is rewarding."

Oh, wow. Interaction with ghetto people, I thought. Here it comes: she can relate to me. Except that I know that partner is not a verb. We are not bonding. My blood pressure is rising and I feel the "do not embarrass me nudge" from my daughter.

She kept talking: "We go down there...." [Yes, Gentle Reader. Down There. The Ghetto.] "...and they [the ghetto children] really can learn....

"The benefits run both ways. Our kids get to see how fortunate they are." [What, pray, are the benefits bestowed upon the poor kids? She never said. I presume it is understood--by rich people--we are all improved by the company of rich people.

Throw into this soliloquy a random thought on "getting outside our own world" and stepping amid the great unwashed and you get the portrait of a woman who thanks her lucky stars she never did get that ghetto job and really is white and working with her own breed.

But here's what stole my breath: She identified the chief benefit of her students' dealing with poor, urban minorities as her students' realizing just how well off they are.

The poor kids scare the rich kids into an appreciation of their good fortune.

That's it.

I listened to this bigoted drivel in polite silence. For only so long. When I could get a word in, I said, "You know, I work with the lowest performing kids in my school. They do lousy on tests, but they are naturally smart, intuitive people. Show them how to read and they will. And they could run circles around you." [Heavy emphasis on the you.]

I am grateful to this woman for helping me realize I am in the right place. And that good things are possible. We are not types. We are people. Even the liberal white gal who doesn't get it. She is a person.

I love what I do. I love and respect my students for being themselves and taking people for who they are rather than trying to change, improve, or reform them. And I am grateful she helped me realize it.

Blog Your Blessings