I’ve loved this song since my freshmen year and on my walk tonight it sparked an interest in me about the line “She thinks she know me, I don’t think she know at all.” This reminded me of an overarching theme in our class of people thinking they know what is best for other people’s children when they don’t. Particularly, white people have a way of doing this all the time. We think we know what is best for everyone because it’s what is best for us. But that is close minded. We need to understand not everyone is like us. Other lyrics are “I’m not a stranger, it’s just a strange land. It’s getting louder, I leave when I can.” That is how a lot of people feel being in school. We make them feel like strangers, we make them feel like outsiders. I remember the few black students we had in our high school fighting with other people. I always thought it was because they were troubled, but maybe we were the ones who were troubled. Maybe our perception of them caused the issues. We need to listen. We don’t know what’s best for everyone.
Once again, I’ll relate this to the Raza Studies discussion. They wanted to create a space where they got to learn about themselves, a place where they didn’t have to be in a strange land. Where they didn’t have to be looked at as “other”. If I could have my drama club then other students should be able to have classes where they actually learn about their culture instead of learning about old white dead dudes like we are all forced to do from the time we enter Kindergarten to the time we graduate.