There's a prompt wandering round the internet this month. Something along the lines of “When did you have your first black teacher?”. Having never really looked at teachers as having race, gender, or opinion -the job of a teacher, to me, is about removing bias to improve perspective and understanding- I never actively considered the individuals, only the lessons. I had to stop, take my time, and think about it.
I couldn't remember. Not at first. But I thought a bit more. In academics, there were almost none. Not till university. But before that...
Reading Rainbow? The notion was there. He counts, in my estimation. But you don't have to take my word for it.
A gymnastics instructor whose face and voice I still remember, who taught with smiles, laughter, and supported me when I didn't think I was good enough.
A karate teacher, the one Master Morey often left in charge of senior students. I can't even remember his face, only his presence- like a piece of chiseled granite in a gi. He made me retake my first black belt test because my front snap kicks weren't up to snuff. They've been better ever since. Hell, the importance of training and development may well have saved my life a few times.
But for formal schooling? Only a single high school math teacher- in a class full of upperclassmen where I kept my head down. Rural New Jersey didn't exactly attract black teachers. Mom grew up and taught in Newark though, where she was often the minority. Presumably that left its own mark, showing how important it was to build a broader worldview and a more inclusive perspective. So maybe those out-of-school instructors weren't flukes. Maybe my mom was an even better teacher than I gave her credit for.
In the school system I grew up in, a driving force was music. Our orchestra was known for sweeping competitions up and down the eastern seaboard, bolstered by many Asian and Indian-American students wanting to fight stereotypes while still pursuing excellence. Our class pictures were a good bit darker and more diverse than most might have guessed for a small farmers' town in New Jersey. but near to no black faces to be found.
I can only think of one family in my entire hometown, and perhaps a dozen students in all in my high school years. “Black” students in my community were unofficially rare and exotic, a countercultural source of conflict, sometimes unable or simply unwilling to conform to the standards I knew so well. One young lady, though I'll not share her name, wrote 'MLK' on her locker in Sharpie on the appropriate day. Might as well have been a scarlet A, really.
But hell, we tried. We watched Glory and Amistad in our sophomore year history class- “American Studies”, facing colonialist horror and white supremacy as boldly as the school might have dared. Later, we watched Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and Inherit the Wind.
We read a lot of heavy stuff. Makes Me Wanna Holler, Angela's Ashes, To Kill a Mockingbird, Black Like Me, Maus, The House on Mango Street... we learned a lot about prejudice, racism, oppression. We learned how to spot them, prove them, and fight them.
I remember the lessons. I also remember how few other students seemed to really care.
Much later on, university. My very first instructor was, by happenstance, black. A man of expertise, stature, and cordial largesse. He was the one for which the first message I sent him was, essentially, “My apartment burned down yesterday. I'm sleeping in my car, and have access to nothing. My uniform might not be perfect during our labs when we start them tomorrow.”. What did he do?
He asked me to come in a little early. We spoke candidly.
Before class started, he dimmed the lights, so that during uniform inspection and the following lab no one else would notice my somewhat rumpled state. Two days later, he snuck shoe polish into my raincoat the day after I showed up soaked to the skin. I'd had to walk three miles to class in a miserable Rhode Island downpour and having nearly been run over by a passing car, my uniform shoes were a scraped up mess. He's a fine teacher and a fine man, among the few I remember fondly from those terrible days.
Would that there were more.
This was a most intriguing prompt to consider. It brought back a number of all but forgotten memories, and inspired a new look at old happenings, from which I now draw new insights.
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