Turn the Pity Hose Off.

It's an insult.

“We have a no whites tolerance policy here!”

I turn around and see one of my favorite students, Jelly, smiling at me. If you haven’t guessed, she’s black.

Game on. Time to talk some smack. 

“That so? Who’s going to teach you then? Doesn’t seem like any black people want to do it.” (It’s a half truth, about 50% of the teaching staff is white.)

My student starts cracking up.

“Oh woooooow, mista. You know what? For that, I hope the next plane trip you take gets canceled and you have to book another ticket.”

“You know why I’m okay with that Jelly?” I let the silence stretch…”Because I can afford it.” 

As I walk down the stairwell to get to my class I can still hear Jelly’s laughter.

______________________________________________________________________

Now. If you’re white, and every instinct inside of you is screaming, “RACIST TEACHER!!!” I need you to take a deep breath with me and ask yourself a couple simple questions.

Would a racist white guy choose to work in a public school in Harlem for 7 years? Would he elect to work in a building that has seen exactly one white pupil during that time? Would he accept and even enjoy working for a black principal? Would he decide to return for an 8th year?

If, after asking yourself those questions, your cognitive dissonance feels like nails running down a chalkboard, and you’re still ready to report me to my superiors for joking about race…you may need to take a step back and reflect, because you might be part of the problem.

It’s a conversation I’ve had with my principal before. Racism takes a lot of interesting and subtle forms, and one of those forms is pity. Here’s an exchange I experience weekly…if not daily. 

-Conversation with random person.

-Random person learns I’m a teacher in Harlem.

Random Person: “Oh woooow. What you’re doing for those kids is just incredible! Those kids really need a guy like you. I’m sure your after school program keeps them out of trouble.”

Me: I give them a thanks and usually add that the kids I work with are great.

I honestly appreciate their compliment, but it also makes me wince a bit. Think about what that line communicates, “Those kids really need a guy like you.” and “Your after school program keeps them out of trouble.” It’s as if rich white kids don’t need caring teachers and poor black kids only play with heroin needles after school. It’s nonsense. There’s a subtext there that states, “our situation is way better than your situation,” and therefore, “we’re better than you.”

And trust me, whenever I hear that line, “what you’re doing is so special,” I don’t believe the people who say it are truly racist. I think they’re just ignorant of the subtext. I know this, because when I first started teaching in Harlem I was incredibly careful with my own words. The exchange I had with Jelly would have never come out of my mouth. I had been drilled at the University of Delaware to understand that I came from a place of privilege. 

Unfortunately for first year me, the kids knew I had that mindset. I was called racist when I called out a kid for having their cell phone out. If I informed a student that they were losing points because they weren’t participating they would immediately say, “What? Because I’m black?” I had no idea how to respond to these accusations. I had been trained at the University of Delaware to believe I was in a place of privilege and could therefore never truly understand the black experience. Due to biases I was unaware of, every action I took could have been racist without my knowledge.

The thing is, I was being racist. When you assume this idea, the idea that you come from a place of privilege, and all your students don’t, you’re already operating under the assumption that you are not equal. When you display pity by not holding students accountable and you duck accusations of racism when they’re clearly ludicrous, you actually communicate that you and your students don’t operate under the same rules. 

Here’s a law of humanity, assholes deserve to be treated like assholes - when you ignore that law you ignore someone’s humanity. That first year the students could have stolen my lunch money and I would’ve let it happen because in some weird way, I felt they needed it more than I did. This thought process disrespects the very kids you’re trying to teach.

Compare that thought process with the exchange I had with Jelly. When she says we have a “no whites policy,” instead of diving into some weird frame of mind where a white person has no footing to talk about race, I recognize the comment exactly for what it is - a teasing jab that needs a jab right back. When I respond, “doesn’t look like any black teachers want to teach you,” Jelly laughs because a) it’s funny and b) jabbing back puts us on equal footing. The subtext behind my response is important. I recognize Jelly as a teasing asshole who deserves to be teased instead of a person who’s just been so beaten down by the system that they need my gentle coddling. By joking back I actually strengthened the relationship with the student and let her know that I don’t think race is a big deal at all. 

This is the power of some light joking about race. It robs race of power. How many blondes got into Harvard last year? We don’t know because nobody cares. Blond hair is a completely trivial physical trait that no one gives a shit about, and it's the exact same way I hope we view the color of each other's skin in the future. The moment I begin treating skin tone as this exalted trait that is exempt from humor is the exact moment I lose the power to connect with my students. After all, I’m white.

I’ll end this with a story from last year.

I bake bitchin chocolate chip cookies. I’m also the only teacher in the school that teaches every single kid all four years in a row. When graduation rolls around it’s always a bittersweet moment. I raised these kids, and as much as I want to kick them out of the nest, I also know I’m going to desperately miss (most) of them. Like a mother about to lose her kid to college, I set off in the kitchen making dozens of chocolate chip cookies.

On the last day of school, I bring them to my seniors. Each kid gets one cookie and I film them taking the first bite and then rating the cookie on a scale of 1-10. It's a fun day where I basically ignore my job, and run around the school hunting down seniors and giving them cookies. 

One of the seniors is Nyliyah, and when I find her she is chilling in the computer lab with my principal. When she sees me, she immediately smiles and holds out her hand for a cookie. I give her one of my masterpieces and take out my phone to record her rating. She takes a bite.

I can almost see the dopamine response in her pupils as the perfect combination of sugar, fat, cacao, toasted butter, and salt nails her taste buds. She says a soft “woah” under her breath. I lean the camera forward in an anticipation of an incoming 10 out of 10, but instead of giving it a rating, she grins at me mischievously and says,

“Nahhhhhh, a black man made these cookies!”

Myself, Nyliyah, and my principal all fall apart in laughter.

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