yes. YOU. can.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
I know I've been lax on posting lately, but, ironically, that's a post for a different time.
I've been doing a lot of teaching. Not teaching the privileged white suburbanites, but teaching the underprivileged inner-city kids. In North Philadelphia and Camden (which I affectionately refer to as "East Philadelphia.")
Lets be blunt: I teach black kids.
So tonight, for the first time in my life or theirs, I can look them in the eye and tell them that they can be anything they want to be when they grow up.
They can be a teacher or a musician; a firefighter or a florist; a cop or a stockbroker.
Or hell, kids, you can be president. Yes we can!? No:
Yes YOU can.
You can be anything you want to be. And I can look you in the face as a white girl and mean it. With evidence to back it up.
Posted byL. at 12:45 AM
Labels: teaching
You know, L, you make an important point.
As a person who grew up well after the civil rights era, with liberal parents, I have been (perhaps shamefully) under-interested in the race and gender elements of this race.
My thinking has been, "Yes, Barack Obama is black, and it would be a great moment for a black man to be elected as the U.S. president, but much more important is that he's the right guy for the job. He is a really smart, principled, diplomatic guy who I trust to find out everything he needs to know about energy and health care and foreign relations and education, and in doing so, make the right decisions to improve this country.
But a week and a half ago, on All Things Considered, NPR did a focus group from a town called York, Pennsylvania (I think I heard of it once before). They spoke to a white woman, who said many racist and ugly things without even knowing she was doing it. But, they also spoke with a black woman, who brought up the same thing that you did - that children's own expectations for their lives will be raised. It shifted my thinking then, and I appreciate your reminder: The kids are the future; teachers and parents can now INSIST that they dream bigger than before, and President Barack Obama's racial identity and biography are worth more than I sometimes realized.
-A