Racism Still Exists in The Classroom

It’s Black History Month and I really didn’t want to write about racism. If I was going to write anything, I wanted to write about Black joy.

But recently, my son’s principal called and said someone said something racist to my son. My son, the sweetest little rule-following kid you could ever meet. My son, who is in the first grade. First grade. I was so shook that I had to step away from work.

If you are under any illusions that we are living in a post-racial society, let me tell you, we are not.

If you thought because Derek Chauvin was found guilty that justice was served and all is right with the world, nope. 

When all the racial unrest was going on, I wrote about what I experienced growing up in a mostly white school — being called the N-word, people making jokes about my race, someone calling me a “North-end ho.” This was in elementary school. My husband heard similar comments. These were the things we didn’t want for our son when he started kindergarten.

We lived in a mostly white school district in 2020, and we didn’t want to move at what we thought was the height of the pandemic, so we stayed put. I wrote “I Can’t Outrun Racism,” and I guess, sadly, I was right. 

We moved in spring 2021 after the school year ended, to a much more diverse district, and I kept telling the principal, “We moved here for the diversity.” 

But racism is everywhere, and I should have known that. I told my husband I’m glad we are a family that talks about race. We don’t ignore it.

My little guy didn’t like hearing something racist, but he told me, “Some people want it to be like segregation. When Black people and white people were separate back in the day.”

He sounds like he’s been listening to me. Do your first graders know what segregation is? Maybe not. Because they don’t have to, right?

I have to talk about race, have to think about it. I’ve dealt with enough microaggressions to know racism and bias (unconscious and conscious) are real. I know people have misconceptions about Black people being poor, uneducated, less than human because I have heard them speak the words. 

I don’t have the illusion that I won’t be talking to my kids about what to do when they are stopped by police. I’ve already started. “Don’t talk back. Do whatever they say. Tell me what happened later.”

My son is dealing with racism in the first grade. I already told y’all we’ve dealt with unconscious bias since preschool.

My 4-year-old daughter was diagnosed with autism last May, and I have a special kind of worry about her. What if the police stop her and she doesn’t understand something? I can’t go down those rabbit holes, so I’m just doing every possible therapy I can to help her function in society.

I say all of this to tell you that racism isn’t history. It’s our present. If you truly want to be antiracist, educate yourself and your children.

As parents, our words are powerful. What you say to and around your children matters. The comments you make about neighborhoods, the media you consume, they hear it all, just like my son hears me talk about Jim Crow and segregation.

A few days after this happened to my son, he wanted to read a book called “You are Your Strong,” a book about being strong and brave, even when it’s hard. The next night, I picked “I Am Every Good Thing,” by former Kansas City resident Derrick Barnes. That book, just like this post, aims to amplify the beauty and humanity in Blackness. This particular page made me and my son both tear up: 

“I am a brother,
a son,
a nephew,
a favorite cousin,
a grandson.
I am a friend.
I am real.”

That’s my son. He is all of those things. He is a real little human being. Educate your children. But even for those who don’t, you can’t steal our joy. Not now, and not ever.