I See Blood

I try to be prepared for racism
on that campus, but everytime I feel ready
to stand they knock me back down.

Today?

I was working against the tide pretty well,
getting ready to cover "color-blind" racism
and "underground" attitudes
when some 18-year-old tiny voice in the back
decides to enlighten us all:

"Well, I work at the [new, local, affluent] mall,
and they are just destroying it--
ruining everything."

Yes, she meant blacks. Yes, she thought the entire
white, suburban class of 35 would agree with her.
Yes, she felt safe in saying that in front of me,
her "white" teacher.

I let my jaw drop and simply stared around the room.

"I'm not racist or anything--it's just now that
they're coming in, the whole place is going to crap--what?
I'm not racist--I feel like the minority now"

"In her defense," another woman picks up the standard,
"I think she's talking about the shooting up there."

_Her_ defense? And my class says Audre Lorde is a racist
for saying white women don't understand the struggles
of black women.

I collapsed in a chair. 20 minutes left
of this 4 hour class and I'm exhausted.

Yesterday I tutored a bi-racial young man
who could barely write, but he wanted his essay to say:
I am studying psychology because I admire my mother
who traveled from Honduras to the [the bleak state] to seek out a better life.
Also, I understand the poverty and sorrow she experienced as a child
because I experienced my own challenges, being partially deaf
and consistantly made fun of all through [a local HS] school because of
my IEP and my ethnicity.

He grew up maybe 40 minutes away from the previous chic
mentioned above. I see how much pain whites inflict
on people of color; I see how opportunities are not all the same.

So, how much more can a young teacher take without
fantasizing violence?

If I had a daughter, perhaps she would console me; perhaps
she would point out all the white men in history who have begun
wars and killed hundreds of thousands without the notoriety
of the mall shooter, without their actions being attributed
to the color of their skin.