A friend once told me that as a teacher, you make thousands of decisions in one day. And not all of them can be right. This comforts me a great deal, but there are some mistakes that I have forever regretted -- fearing that somehow I negatively impacted a child's ambition, perception or trajectory.
In my first year as a teaching artist, in a Brooklyn intermediate school, I met a young man named Freddie. When he introduced himself to me, he declared that he would be "the first black President of the United States." I remember internally scoffing at him. Freddie was obviously delusional, I thought. Did he not understand that America had long ago figured out a fool-proof system to keep non-whites out of the kingdom? Study and work as hard as you want, but America is not an equal opportunity employer. Mind you, I was 22 at the time, fresh out of college, fueled by punk rock, Spike Lee films and black literature from the likes of Richard Wright and The Autobiography of Malcolm X. So the notion that the entire game was fixed, that the American Dream was a bait and switch sales pitch, that whatever progress made by minorities was really just a calculated risk on white America's part -- all of that was ingrained in me. So much so that when I left Brooklyn, I penned a letter to one of my students, Melissa, encouraging her to fight the man because he was counting on her to fail, that she needed to do all she could to avoid the booby-traps laid out for her and millions like her. So imagine the size of the foot I shoved in my mouth when Barack Obama happened. I was the first in my neighborhood to slap that Obama 08 sticker on my car. When friends and family laughed at me for supporting a lost cause, I dug my heels in and donated another $10 to the campaign. Because I was wrong. Because Freddie was right. Because this was the turning point in American history. This was when our country would make good on its sales pitch -- that it was, indeed, the land of opportunity -- that if you worked hard enough, you could achieve greatness.
But with the recent trials and tribulations of Black America, I am spending a lot of time meditating on Freddie and Melissa. Even this cynic could not foresee the amount of violence inflicted on black citizens in such a short span of time in 2015. A young man shot dead because he looked suspicious in a hoodie, an unarmed teenager shot dead in broad daylight and church-goers gunned down in prayer. This isn't a problem with guns (I do think we have a gun problem, but if America wasn't fixing it after two dozen white kids are shot in Sandy Hook, what makes you think they'll do something because nine black people were shot in a historically black church), it's not about mental health (which seems like the new excuse for all horrific events; guys, the dude was insane - 'nuff said), but it is a great deal about race and that's incredibly depressing. How has so much changed and nothing's changed? Now, to be clear, I had no illusions that by electing our first Black president that we were somehow in post-racial America. That whole idea in itself is racist - albeit in a somewhat apologetic way; we got your man in the top post, so let's move on and forget the fact that we have fucked you for hundreds of years. Nope, people seemed to be content with kumbaya in Millennium Park. Checked that box so we're good now, right? Equality in education? Nah. Equality in income? Nah. Voter rights? Shut up, already -- you have a Black president!
Freddie and Melissa, I want to be wrong, but I don't know anymore. In the years since I scoffed at you and wrote you that letter, I have found hope in change. That regardless of faith, creed and color, all things would evolve. That people die and with them, antiquated, small-minded thinking. That the America my kids were born into would be a little better than the one I grew up in. But it's become clear that not everyone lives in the same America.
Jon Stewart sums up my frustrations pretty accurately:
“I honestly have nothing other than sadness that once again we have to peer into the abyss of the depraved violence that we do to each other and the nexus of a just gaping racial wound that will not heal yet we pretend doesn’t exist. I’m confident though that by acknowledging it—by staring into it—we still won’t do jack shit.”
