Racism and Hookers

This sun is shining through, literally and figuratively. I'm happy to be writing today from a place of delight and wonder at what went right. Today, I asked my students to write for ten minutes about the areas of their life where they felt the most free and the other areas of their life where the felt the most limited. I asked them to take into consideration the role of their gender, age, race, or religion in their freedoms and limitations. With my first class of freshman, the class that is generally more obedient and subsequently more subservient, the follow up conversation was dull with only the usual five or six students participating. But my afternoon freshmen, the crew that has been the bigger challenge and test of patience, but which clearly has the most sass, the most spunk, and will likely be the ones I remember forever, students dove into the conversation. As I've already mentioned here gender roles and sexism are big topics in my life right now, so we started there. In a class dominated by women (in numbers), there was a lot to say about the double standard many of us have faced. My female students admitted to having more responsibilities at home and less privileges outside of the house. They complained about not being able to play football and the modified rules for co-ed sports. Finally, there was some directed passion! Students were eagerly taking turns to say their piece. I was just about to foolishly move on to discussing one of the vignettes they were supposed to read for homework last night when the self-proclaimed "goth" in my class shouted out, "Wait a minute. What about race? How come we didn't talk about race?"

I'd been so happy with the discussion of gender, that I wanted to count it as a success and move on without tackling race, too. But as soon as she said the word, I was there and ready. I had tried to bring up racism two weeks ago, before my students trusted me at all. The response was ugly and by the end several students accused me of being racist. In fact, I was acknowledging that racism exists, is systemic, and pervasive. I can only guess that my frank talk of it made them suspicious or nervous, a white woman admitting unfair treatment, or in my case -- unfair privilege. Today, we turned to race.

I asked my students, "How does your race limit you or in some cases free you?"

Hands shot up. Everyone suddenly had a story. For the first time in four weeks, I could feel 90% of the class was with me, hooked, and engaged. THIS is why I became a teacher. My students started telling their stories. I prompted them with, "Raise your hand if you've ever walked into a store and had someone follow you to see if you were shoplifting?" All of the hands shot up and yelps of "me, me" and "I have a story" came leaping from their mouths.

All of their stories were similar and all placed the blame on someone who had unfairly judged them because of their race and possibly their age or attire. While all were eager to share their stories, they were also eager to listen to each other. In a class of competitors, there seemed to be the first glimpse of authentic support and empathy. When it was my turn, I managed to keep myself from crying when I said to my students, "I want to thank you for sharing your stories. I hope you will continue to bring your experience to this class. I want you also to know that I acknowledge that as a white woman I have been unfairly allowed certain privileges that you have not. I have NEVER been suspected of something I didn't do, and I do not know what you have felt." And then I found an opportunity to share a bit of myself with them because even though they don't seem to like me or to even care because everything is "boring" or "stupid," I have been told by them in their letters and exit cards that they want to know more about me. I also know that as a student my most effective teachers were the ones who let us in to their lives and struggles too. So, I told my class that the closest I had come to feeling judged unfairly was when I was out and about with my skateboarding ex-boyfriend. I told them that I had never been afraid of a cop until one yelled at me to get off of my board. It was only a glimpse and nothing like the daily discrimination I know my students face.

Pretty soon we were back to the vignette. I wanted the students to talk about whether the main character, Marin, was limited or free in her situation. I wanted them to read between the lines, to see that she was responsible for taking care of the house while her aunt was away and that when her aunt returned she was not allowed to leave the front of the house. They read between the lines alright: almost by consensus they all believed that she was a hooker. This character wore a short skirt and wanted attention from boys. I've read "The House on Mango Street" about six or seven times now and I've never considered Marin to be a hooker. I still don't consider her to be a hooker. But I suppose their is an alternative interpretation, and if I look at the schema my students bring to their reading, Marin is probably a hooker. After all, we have at least two neighborhood hookers who even in broad daylight walk up and down our street, directly in front of the school, directly in front of my classroom. It should not be surprising, then, that they see Marin as a hooker when I see her simply as a girl who feels trapped. As their teacher, someone who every day talks about reading as "meaning making," I have to be open to their interpretations and be true to my word that they should bring themselves to a text.

What I am not sure about supporting, however, is the way they lit into the hooker. Suddenly the class was awash in nasty comments and belittling remarks. She morphed from a hooker to a ripper to a slut and a whore. What a ripper is, I still don't know. I stopped my class and said something like, "This may be a character in a book, and you might think being a hooker is not a good thing, but it doesn't mean hookers are bad people. I'm going to ask you to think about the person behind the profession and consider that she has feelings too. And in reality, she might be our neighbor, a member of our community, someone in your family." Did they hear me? I'm not sure. A couple of students said it was her fault, that she deserved to be talked badly about because she made the decision to sell her body or "do the nasty" (here, I told them it was perfectly okay to say sex in my classroom). I was surprised to find no sympathy for the woman's situation. Similarly, when we came to the vignette of Rosa Vargas who had too many children to take care of, whose husband had left her, all of the students including the girls blamed only the woman for her situation. It was her fault for choosing a loser guy. It was her fault for not using protection. It was her fault for not putting her kids up for adoption.

I feel like there's something here. These characters could live in my students' families, their neighborhoods, and god forbid, could be the students themselves, and yet there is this inward finger pointing: you can choose a better situation; you can fix your problem; you need will power, strength, and common sense. My students are blaming individuals for their circumstances, but when it comes to their own behavior it is a contradiction; when my students make bad choices it is never their fault. They seek sympathy and explain their own blame away.

I'm left with the question: how can I open them up to the contradiction before them and give them a key to their own choices?

Such a large question, and finally an important one. We are not discussing where to put your homework or how to sign out to go to the bathroom. We are preparing to ask tough questions that might not have answers. Yes, this is a breakthrough.