Summer Institute, moving to New York, beginning my teaching job—this summer has been the beginning of an on-going experience of unlearning what I have learned my whole life. I have never lived in a city before, and I have rarely spent much time in environments where I am a racial or ethnic minority. In college, I met people who challenged me to question many of the assumptions and stereotypes which we learn as children and which are reinforced over and over again in our culture—in the media we view, in the conversations and interactions of people around us—so-called “conventional wisdom.”

In college, I thought I would commit my life to environmental education, to the most progressive, inclusive forms of environmental education I could find or create. I saw ecological thinking as a key to solving all social problems. Environmental education was a form of progressive action with which I felt comfortable, able to live with myself as socially responsible and yet not burdened by the anxiety of having my beliefs frequently challenged. Finally, as I described my vision of ecological education to a friend, she pushed the conversation. She questioned my assumptions about how ecological education would respond to racism and racial inequalities in our society. I realized that I might be hiding from harder issues with which I did not feel comfortable. I realized that I could not just talk a good game: I would need to start playing. And to play well would require constant practice.

I began to notice that people I respected spoke often of needing to be constantly, consciously anti-racist. There was no single event, experience, or epiphany which could make them no longer racist; rather, they saw themselves as participants in a racist society. As one friend described it, if society is like a moving sidewalk, you have three choices: you can walk forward with the sidewalk, you can stand still and be carried along, or you can turn around and walk twice as hard the other direction. To counter racism, she said, you need to turn around and walk against society’s racism. If you rest, you will be carried backwards.

I write this not at all as an expert, or even as a particularly “good” anti-racist person. I have so much to learn, and so many ideas to which I aspire but fail to live up to in real life. Yet I know that I have to continue walking against that moving sidewalk. I have to wake up to my own stereotypes and challenge them in myself and others. I have to look for ways to alter the structures & systems in society which perpetuate inequality. I have to ask good questions rather than making assumptions. I have to see complexity rather than dichotomy. I have to educate myself rather than waiting for someone else to show me the answers.

These past few months have accelerated this learning process for me. First, when I decided to join Teach For America, I began to notice my own and others’ preconceptions about my job. The schools and communities we teach in are referred to, variously, as “inner-city,” “ghetto,” “under-resourced,” “majority-minority,” “struggling,” “impoverished,” “at-risk,” and so forth. Think for a minute: what exactly does “inner-city” mean? Do you picture Bronx Science, one of the most prestigious specialized high schools in New York (and the country)? If you’re like most people (myself included), “inner city” does not mean Bronx Science. Most of these terms are a kind of code for schools where most of the students are people of color, and most come from low-income families. And for many people, these terms are also a code for violence, drugs, sex, poor academic performance, dysfunctional families, etc. Thus, in a word or two, I can communicate to people quite a bit of negative information about the kind of schools TFA works in.

The spring and summer were challenging because I was attempting to limit my own preconceptions before I arrived at my school, yet other people were more than willing to remind me of the stereotypes. I knew that I would be placed in a school where teachers were most needed, but I didn’t want to define in advance what problems would face me, my students, their families and communities, and my school.

This sounds painfully obvious, but I think that it is frequently forgotten. One of the most important things you can do to achieve justice in this country is to constantly remind yourself of the basic humanity of other people. New York City has its reputation—don’t look at anyone, clutch your purse to your chest, don’t ever show money or a map, don’t make eye contact with homeless people, avoid Harlem and the S. Bronx, don’t walk alone at night—yet I did not want to let that reputation limit my ability to experience the city and to trust other human beings. I encountered apartment brokers who refused to show places above 96th St. (that is, anywhere close to Harlem) and certainly not to three white women. Yet I had already visited teachers living in Harlem and Washington Hts. who took sensible precautions and felt perfectly comfortable in their neighborhoods.

I created for myself a sort of mantra: The vast majority of people are kind, hard-working, and want similar things for themselves and their families. I try to keep this running through the back of my head, to counter the pervasive societal messages about which people to trust, which people to fear, and how to respond. I don’t want to avoid the subways at all cost, like one family I know, because the vast majority of people on the subways are kind, hardworking, and want similar things for themselves and their families. I don’t want to cross the street when a group of Latino teenagers approaches a few blocks from my home, because the vast majority of people are kind, hardworking, and want similar things for themselves and their families. I don’t want to live in a state of constant anxiety, and I can avoid this by remembering that the vast majority of people are kind, hardworking, and want similar things for themselves and their families.

Similarly, my students attend an inner-city school, but that doesn’t mean their families don’t care whether they get a good education, or that they are all gang members, or that they aren’t college-bound. It doesn’t mean they have low self-esteem, or don’t speak English, or have no interest in reading. Yes, some of these things are true for some of my students, and yes, perhaps my students face more challenges than students in mostly-white, upper-middle-class communities. But how we think and talk about such situations matters a great deal.

I try to avoid the twin traps of “villain or victim.” Villain is obvious; if I speak up against racial profiling by the police, I need to avoid it in my own life. I need to avoid blaming my own students for the problems in their lives. I need to resist the assumption that the teens are doing drugs and joining gangs, that I should fear my students (and their relatives) if I meet them on the street at night. Victim is a little less obvious; while society and “American culture” may be responsible for many of the problems my students face, these children are not passive victims drowning in a sea of injustice. They and others in their communities are a part of our society, respond to injustice, and find ways to not only survive but create viable lives in their environment. They are neither helpless nor miserable. (unfinished)

-Kelly Vaughan
winter 2000