dear substitute dance teacher
Nov. 10th, 2014 09:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alenxa_classicI'm sorry my son refused to dance with you.
I could say that he needed a nap, which would be true. He may also need some more time to recover from the cold that smacked him around last week (mostly in the face, which he's not letting heal). He might even be freaked out about having to wear his backup leotard again, although he wasn't two weeks ago. But the fact is, he refused to go into the classroom with you when he was perfectly fine about participating in a make-up class at a totally different location with a teacher he'd also never seen before. A teacher who, unlike you, is white.
I tried everything I could think of. I reminded him of the class he'd taken with the other substitute teacher, that he'd liked it and that they'd done the same things as in this class. I reminded him that he liked dancing with the two girls in the class who are also not white, that he's met their parents and not been afraid of them. I told him that if he didn't go dance, you would never know how hard he'd been practicing to remember the "candy toy soldiers" music the class had been using to work on a mini-performance. I reminded him that you had opened the school front door for us so you had to be a kind person. I went so far as to promise him that you wouldn't hurt him, and to pick him up so that he could watch the rest of the class warming up and doing exactly what the regular teacher does with them. He demanded to get down and kept trying to hide. I told him that if he didn't want to dance today, he wouldn't be getting a make-up class because we were here and it was just him deciding he didn't want to dance. He wanted to go home.
So we went home.
I had thought I was doing good things for him with regards to teaching him about race. When, at his first dance class, he looked at me and observed proudly of those two little girls that "Those two guys are brown!" I nodded and smiled and gave him a thumbs-up for recognizing that fact, rather than shushing him or telling him not to talk about it. When, as kids do, he acts like a jackass in public and takes things from other kids, I make him apologize and I apologize too. I only accept their parents' "It's okay" when the kid is a white boy, because I'll be damned if I deliberately let him think his privilege should be any kind of shield for unacceptable behavior. His dad and I have explained to him the words for races and that no matter what that one awful Karen Katz book says you do NOT describe skintone in terms of food. He loves his book about Rosa Parks. We find ourselves at the Galleria more often than the malls in the whiter areas, and he's fine with that.
I am still failing him. And together, we are failing you.
I may be wrong. It may be that, absent all the other factors weighing on him today, he'd have bounced right in and been happy to dance. That doesn't change what he did, or make it acceptable for him to pull back and hide rather than take your hand. It doesn't make you feel better. And I'm well aware that, were you to read this post, it probably wouldn't either. But I feel as if I should say something, somewhere, the way you or any number of other well-meaning, beautiful, friendly black substitute preschool teachers might be saying, somewhere, "Little white boy was afraid of me today. What are his parents teaching him?" The answer is: What we ought to, but not enough.
We will keep trying. Should you sub for his teacher again, I'll be asking if I can be in the room for a few minutes to start. Should he act afraid of other black people in a place where I can see him, I'll be repeating what I told him outside in the hall today, that you are people and all people deserve his respect, not his fear. We'll keep supplying him with books from all points on the color and culture spectrum and hoping he'll make the connection with the live people we'll continue to make sure he sees and interacts with. And maybe, if there is a next time for you teaching his class, he'll bounce into the room, happy to dance.
I could say that he needed a nap, which would be true. He may also need some more time to recover from the cold that smacked him around last week (mostly in the face, which he's not letting heal). He might even be freaked out about having to wear his backup leotard again, although he wasn't two weeks ago. But the fact is, he refused to go into the classroom with you when he was perfectly fine about participating in a make-up class at a totally different location with a teacher he'd also never seen before. A teacher who, unlike you, is white.
I tried everything I could think of. I reminded him of the class he'd taken with the other substitute teacher, that he'd liked it and that they'd done the same things as in this class. I reminded him that he liked dancing with the two girls in the class who are also not white, that he's met their parents and not been afraid of them. I told him that if he didn't go dance, you would never know how hard he'd been practicing to remember the "candy toy soldiers" music the class had been using to work on a mini-performance. I reminded him that you had opened the school front door for us so you had to be a kind person. I went so far as to promise him that you wouldn't hurt him, and to pick him up so that he could watch the rest of the class warming up and doing exactly what the regular teacher does with them. He demanded to get down and kept trying to hide. I told him that if he didn't want to dance today, he wouldn't be getting a make-up class because we were here and it was just him deciding he didn't want to dance. He wanted to go home.
So we went home.
I had thought I was doing good things for him with regards to teaching him about race. When, at his first dance class, he looked at me and observed proudly of those two little girls that "Those two guys are brown!" I nodded and smiled and gave him a thumbs-up for recognizing that fact, rather than shushing him or telling him not to talk about it. When, as kids do, he acts like a jackass in public and takes things from other kids, I make him apologize and I apologize too. I only accept their parents' "It's okay" when the kid is a white boy, because I'll be damned if I deliberately let him think his privilege should be any kind of shield for unacceptable behavior. His dad and I have explained to him the words for races and that no matter what that one awful Karen Katz book says you do NOT describe skintone in terms of food. He loves his book about Rosa Parks. We find ourselves at the Galleria more often than the malls in the whiter areas, and he's fine with that.
I am still failing him. And together, we are failing you.
I may be wrong. It may be that, absent all the other factors weighing on him today, he'd have bounced right in and been happy to dance. That doesn't change what he did, or make it acceptable for him to pull back and hide rather than take your hand. It doesn't make you feel better. And I'm well aware that, were you to read this post, it probably wouldn't either. But I feel as if I should say something, somewhere, the way you or any number of other well-meaning, beautiful, friendly black substitute preschool teachers might be saying, somewhere, "Little white boy was afraid of me today. What are his parents teaching him?" The answer is: What we ought to, but not enough.
We will keep trying. Should you sub for his teacher again, I'll be asking if I can be in the room for a few minutes to start. Should he act afraid of other black people in a place where I can see him, I'll be repeating what I told him outside in the hall today, that you are people and all people deserve his respect, not his fear. We'll keep supplying him with books from all points on the color and culture spectrum and hoping he'll make the connection with the live people we'll continue to make sure he sees and interacts with. And maybe, if there is a next time for you teaching his class, he'll bounce into the room, happy to dance.
