The class is called "Human Relations for the Classroom Teacher". We meet once a week, from 6:00 to 8:30, in Lindquist Center. The professor's name is Betsy Anderson. The theme: Multiculturalism and Diversity.
I am skeptical.
A cynic by nature, I am skeptical of any and all buzzwords, whose premise seem to be that whatever we were doing before is useless, and that this new concept, under the banner of this artificial word, will fix everything.
It is not, for the record., that I am against acquiring other cultures. I have spent more of the last two years in Venezuela than in Iowa, and I don't think any Venezuelan would accuse me of an attitude of cultural superiority. Within a month of arriving in Mérida, I deliberately shed all things American: music, food, friends, and, most critically, the English language. Within a couple months, my host family was calling me an "honorary Venezuelan". Now that I'm back in Iowa, I feel more like a foreigner here than I did there.
Our first text does nothing to hearten me. It's called We Can't Teach What We Don't Know: White Teachers, Multiracial Schools, written by a guy named Gary R. Howard. Howard is an upper middle class white guy who went to Yale a couple decades ago and did an internship in a poor, mainly African-American neighborhood in New Haven. He talks about all he learned, which is okay, but the way he talks about it sounds like any teacher that doesn't decide to spend their summer or their "gap year" or whatever working in a minority neighborhood is doomed to failure, or worse, is just being an asshole. He ends the book talking about a trip he took to England and doing dance rituals (I am not making this up) in places like Stonehenge, finally discovering his "true Anglo-Saxon culture". I wonder how his parents, his grandparents, his ancestors that decided to leave England, would feel about claiming their culture was not their "true" culture. But. Whatever.
There is some really good stuff in the class, though. On one of the first nights we use crayons to color our "identity" on paper plates, kinda like a family crest. I use my limited art skills to draw a baseball field, a Catholic church, an Irish flag, covers of favorite books. After we finish we all share. There are no huge variances from mine, although of course all the details are different.
"You see," Betsy says, "this is why I really like having some minority students in here. None of you--all 24--none of you mentioned you were White. I have never done this with an African-American student who didn't put 'Black' as a big part of their identity. Hundreds of times I've done this activity. White kids never put 'White'. Black kids always put 'Black'. We don't even think about being White. But if you're Black, you can't not think about it."
Our next guest speaker is a man by the name of Eddie Moore, Jr., who is a professor at Cornell College in Cedar Rapids. Moore is tall African-American man wearing a nice suit ("would I even notice the suit" I think "if he were White"? The class is starting to infiltrate my thinking). Moore is a dynamic speaker. He tells of a time when he went into a restaurant to eat, wearing the same suit he is currently wearing. He waited to be seated. The hostess took him back to the kitchen--she thought he was applying for a job as a cook.
Moore presents a set of cold, hard facts for us: Black people don't make as much money. Black people don't do as well in school. More Black people are in prison. More Black people are arrested even though the rate of delinquency is equal to that of Whites. Less Black people own their own homes. Perhaps most strikingly, Black people die younger--much younger. These are the numbers. They are not subjective.
"When you look at these numbers," Moore says, "you have to come to one of two conclusions. The first possibility is that Black people are inferior to White people." The room rustles. "I can tell you are not comfortable with that conclusion. The second possibility--the only other possibility--is that there is some sort of problem, or problems, with our society that is holding Black people back more so than White people. We call that Systemic Racism. Nobody's burning crosses. A lot of people aren't even aware the problems exist. But if you don't believe Black people are inherently inferior to White people, there is no other conclusion."
He has convinced me. The next week in class we receive a handout: "10 signs you have White Privilege":
1. Nobody wonders if you go into your college based on your skin color.
2. You don't have a ready response for "Where are you from?"
3. You aren't expect to explain all White people's behavior.
4. You've never been called a thug or anti-American.
5. People aren't surprised when you're articulate.
6. Most of the people in history textbooks have your color of skin.
7. You don't worry about excessive attention from the police.
8. You can screw up without it reflecting badly on your race.
9. You can have money without people wondering if you're in the drug trade.
10. You culture isn't appropriated--it is the culture.
I am left with no doubt that I have White Privilege, and that Systemic Racism exists.
Another night we have a group of students from the UI LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer) association come to class and talk to us. They are very nice and assure us that any question is okay, they won't be offended. They speak of depression, of wanting with everything in them to not be gay, family estrangements, self-harm, suicide attempts. They speak of getting the shit beat out of them, especially the guys. They speak of movies--if a movie has a gay lead, why is it considered a "gay movie"? We don't call movies with straight leads "Straight Movies". They speak of coming out, accepting themselves, celebrating themselves, the peace that it brings.
I am left with no doubt that I have White, Straight Privilege.
We begin reading a book called Schoolgirls by Peggy Orenstein. I am amazed by what she documents, the psychological horror some girls put themselves through, the different treatment by their parents, the unrelenting social pressure to conform. We watch videos. Men and women submit job applications with everything the same but the name. Men receive twice as many invitations to interview, particularly for managerial positions.
A man and woman of the same age with the same social background go into a car dealership. The woman presents her driver's license for a test drive. The salesman explains that for insurance reasons, he can't let her drive the car, but she can sit in the passenger seat while he takes it for a ten minute spin. That same day, in the afternoon, the man goes in. He asks about a test drive. "Absolutely," the salesman says. "Here are the keys. Take as long as you need. I'll be here waiting." The man did not even show him his license.
Betsy says that this stuff is everywhere, if you just keep your eyes out. A couple nights later, in my Educational Psychology class, it's a little chilly. There's a window open. "Mark, can you get up on a chair and close that window?" the professor--a woman--asks me. There are two women closer to the window than me. Neither seems to mind or to have noticed the irony. I get up and close the window.
I am left with no doubt that I have White, Male, Straight Privilege.
What I do have doubt about is exactly what to do with this knowledge. I am going to teach, so I suppose it is good to know that these things exist. I make a couple of ineffectual stabs at joining campus organizations to combat racism, homophobia, sexism. But I work 20 hours a week and take classes full time and I'm getting ready to student teach, and I have a full social calendar. I think about emailing Eddie Moore, Jr., but it slips away.
Human Relations for the Classroom Teacher ends in December. There are tears and promises to be in touch over Christmas Break, hugs galore for Betsy. It ends up being probably my favorite class in the entire School of Education. But I still don't know about the subtitle, "Multiculturalism and Diversity". Maybe a better subtitle would have been "Aspects of Privilege". The class certainly showed me lots of the privileges I've had in society, how being White, Male and Straight have made things considerably easier for me than someone who may be Black, Female or Gay.
As the 24 of us chat before we all go our separate ways--18 women and 6 men, all White, not sure about sexual orientation--it strikes me that the one thing we did have in common, apart from education obviously, is that we all seemed pretty solidly middle class.
And I think about that a little more. Being White, Male and Straight have made my road easier, but I still think that probably the biggest factor in me being where I'm at, close to a Bachelor's Degree at a prestigious institution, is my family background. Very functional family, lots of support, emotional and financial, an expectation that I would go to college--all 3 of my siblings are also college students or graduates. My dad has a good middle-class job teaching at a community college, and my mom, before she died, also had a decent middle class job as a department head at Hy-Vee.
There are only 16 weeks in a semester, so you can't do everything, but it sure would have been interesting to discuss Financial Privilege in addition to all that other Privilege.
To be continued...
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