Dirty Little Secret

I was inspired to share this story by this post.

My first full-time elementary teaching job was at a magnet school in Kansas City, Kansas. KCK (as it is known locally) is a typically urban school district, low in money and high on problems. The neighborhood I worked in at first was the kind you avoid after dark. The kind where you knew you were early for work because the crack whores were still working. The kind where former students might approach your car to sell you drugs.

My first grade class that year a pretty even split between African-American and Latino students, with a few Vietnamese students mixed in. There were a couple of real tough cookies in that class. There were also a number of great kids with wonderful families, but none of them stayed in the district after third grade. Anyway, in my very diverse class, the tough cookies were the leaders.

One day, a little girl came to my desk in tears. It was inside recess (I can’t remember if it was because of the weather or because of a neighborhood shooting, to be quite honest), so I was grading papers while the kids drew, built with Legos and played on the computers. Now, Angela was a little bit of a drama queen who had very supportive and kind parents, so I wasn’t too worried when she approached the desk. I knew it wasn’t going to be some scary revelation. I asked her what was wrong.

“They called me WHITE!!!!!!!” she wailed. I guessed that this was a bad thing. She nodded and exclaimed, I’m MIXED! I’m NOT white!” Ooooookay, I thought. This should be interesting. I approached my two tough cookies that Angela had blamed for this grave insult.

By careful questioning, I found out that they had called Angela “white” and they were sorry about it. But I couldn’t let it go. I looked at the three girls and asked, “What color do you girls think I am?”

“Why, Miz Teacher, you mixed!” exclaimed the toughest one. Now, at this point in my life I had very blond hair. My skin has always been the color of chalk. White chalk. I couldn’t be any whiter if I tried. Some make-up brands do not make foundation PALE enough for me. I am SUPER-WHITE. Once I went as a vampire for Halloween and someone asked me what make-up I had used to get so pale. All I had done was not wear blush.

“Girls,” I said carefully, “why do you think I’m mixed?”

“Because you so nice!” said toughie two confidently. Well, I thought, at least they must like me.

“Well, I’m white. And so is . . .” and I went on to list the other white teachers. “Your skin color and your heritage have nothing to do with how nice you are. Or how not nice you are. So let’s not use color as an insult in our class any more, okay?”

I never heard about it again. But it was always in the back of my mind when I met a confrontational parent or when I had an unpopular white student.

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