BLOG NUMBER 4: The Struggles of a Senior White American Man
In loving memory of Anna Bitterman, known to the kids as Grandma Anna, who succumbed to COVID-19 in March 2020. We miss you, but your warm presence encourages us still.
Four nights have passed since I read James Baldwinâs 1979 speech at University of California, Berkeley. His words yet burn in my ears and sear at my soul. The concepts flowing from his now still lips are in repeat mode within my consciousness. I feel ignorant. I sense a course adjustment in my essay.
Two statements from Baldwinâs address have affected the direction of my research. The first, âEvery white person in this country â I donât care what he or she says â knows one thing ⊠they know they would not like to be black here.â The second, â⊠we find ourselves up against a vast machinery of racism which infects the countryâs entire system of education.â
(James Baldwin at his estate in Southern France, Phot published in Semana, September 12, 2021, https://www.semana.com/periodismo-cultural---revista-arcadia/articulo/james-baldwin-escritor-negro-estadounidense-treinta-anos-tras-su-muerte/67273/)
Those two sentences alone bast away at the foundations of my essay on the Path to ShineÂź efforts with school children but, more significantly, question the assumptions and very motivations for my involvement in this educational program. Do I, as a white person, have blinders that hinder my effectiveness serving the children, 85 percent of whom are people of color. Am I, essentially, a collaborator in my interactions and cooperative plans with a public school system that is unintentionally destined to fail students of color? These questions haunt me â I am powerless to ignore them.
In the early 1970s as an Air Force sergeant, I had in my crew a young white airman who grew up in poverty in Eastern Arkansas. A great mechanic, he will be identified simply as Eddie. Eddie loved to drink â drink led him to tales of his scrappy town and the black neighborhood of his childhood. The Motown sound of the time set his memories back to adults who had helped him and contemporaries who had befriended, almost all African American. One night, listening to the Four Tops and others, a stewed Eddie began to cry, âSaaarrg, why do ya think God made me white? I hate being white ... I always wanted to be black!â I was baffled; however, I eventually recalled the Eddieâs military pals were seldom white. He felt trapped by his race.
The fact that I was baffled by Eddieâs confession was and is a telling window into the soul of a person who, fundamentally, judged his heart free of bias. I was not!
Obviously, a brief essay on the subject of âThe Ice Breakerâ cannot and should not resolve these two questions in their impact on my Path to ShineÂź efforts: the posing of these questions may need suffice. However, my essay approach now includes two factors that, in the long run, will feed on each other: how has my service to elementary school children impacted their lives and, perhaps more crucially, how has this service and the children themselves impacted my life?
The demographics of Path to ShineÂź student participants include 56 percent African American, 33 percent Hispanic, and the minority balance are of Caucasian origin. Since these statistics do not represent the demographic breakdowns of the communities our programs serve (some, such as Dunwoody, Georgia, are affluent and predominantly white communities), intellectual curiosity begs questions of the whys. Why do the school systems, teachers, and parents appear incapable of guiding floundering students to the goal of high school education? Why does our population of students differ significantly from the ethnic and economic backgrounds of the communities we serve? My research goal is to uncover contributing factors without firm conclusions.
A YouTubeÂź video exists that engages a diverse group of high school students in the prospect of winning $100 in a foot race. However, before the race begins the âcoachâ gives each student a two-paces-forward advantage for each question answered âyesâ. Each question is based solely on economic and family background with no regard for individual capabilities. For example, two-pace-forward increments are rewarded when parents are still married, if a father figure lives at home, if participants never worried about getting a meal, if the student went to a private school, and so forth. The result was that the âstarting linesâ differed for nearly each student: the kids with the greatest number of âyesâ answers were far ahead of the ânoâsâ, through no efforts of their own. Incidentally, white students in the group found themselves, in general, ahead although the race had not begun.
In his highly influential blog on American education (The Edvocate), Dr. Matthew Lynch claims that multiple of reasons exist why our education systems fail some students. His reasoning includes several factors that also influence the kids who participate in our Path to ShineÂź programs, including limited parental involvement (parental apathy, single parent, or multiple job parent homes), insufficient school resources, lowered expectations for certain racial and economic backgrounds among educators, and an inability to achieve education equity among all demographic groups. Given that Dr. Lynchâs pronouncements were established nearly forty years following Baldwinâs 1979 speech, one wonders if the same speech could be addressed to a contemporary audience with similar accuracy.
(https://www.theedadvocate.org/10-reasons-the-u-s-education-system-is-failing/)
While my heart breaks in the hearing of Baldwinâs words, my intellect suggests that a degree of progress may have been achieved since 1979: are white folks like me less likely to hold the lot of black folks in a less pitiable perspective, and is the American education system still harboring the âvast machinery of racismâ?
I am in the process of interviewing five persons who have committed goodly portions of their time to improving the prospects of children whose backgrounds represent known learning disadvantages: Rev. Leslie-Ann Drake, the founder and current executive director for Path to ShineÂź, a parent-family school liaison for a Fulton County, Georgia elementary school, a former instructor for a local preparatory academy who recently resigned to accept a teaching role in the Fulton County School System, an Episcopal priest who sponsored a Path to ShineÂź program through her church, and my spouse, Donald, who has also offered three years of dedication to local elementary school kids. My questions have changed to a degree because of James Baldwinâs perspectives.
(Photo of College Park Mayor Bianca Motley Broom by Michael Isham)
My goal is to illustrate that the learning process for those who guide the âice breakerâ across the treachery of a frozen path is as meaningful for them as it is for the children they serve.
