Look obviously that happened many many times, usually with misogynist or ableist teachers. But I have a BETTER story than that, which is that when I was in 3rd grade, I went to this tiny alternative hippy school—it was a regular public school, it was just small and staffed/run by hippie communists—and my 3rd grade teacher was a woman who had been in an organization with my mother, and they had done direct action together more than a few times. We’ll call her D.
One day I was sitting in D’s class, eight years old and bored out of my mind, and I scratched my name into the back of my plastic chair with a rock. Was this reasonable behavior? No. Why did I do it? Only the gods can say. I don’t actually remember doing the scratching, I just remember looking at the rock in my hand and my name on the chair and going, “HUH. That’s not good.”Â
So obviously I got caught, bc I couldn’t reasonably convince anyone that I wasn’t the one who had done it, since it was MY NAME, and as punishment for this act of arbitrary vandalism I was sentenced to recess detention for two weeks. It was October so this included Halloween. Halloween, to be clear, is a high holy day in San Francisco, and I was devastated to miss the informal festivities that would be occurring at recess that day, and I wept and wailed about this at home for some time until my mother decided that this was disproportionate punishment and took it into her own hands to do something about it. Â
So my mom walks into D’s office on a day when my mother does not have to be at work at a scheduled time, but D has to get her students from the yard in about ten minutes, and my mom sits down and says to her old friend and comrade, “Miranda is really upset about having detention on Halloween.”
And D explains to my mother why the detention was issued, what the circumstances were, and my mother nods, and listens, and doesn’t argue, and doesn’t show any sign of getting up from her chair. And just says again “She’s really upset about having detention on Halloween.”Â
And D looks at my mother, and she looks at the clock in her office, which is telling her that she has to be on the yard in 2 minutes now, and then looks at my mother again, who shows no sign of having anywhere to be, my mother with whom D has organized and successfully executed multiple sit-ins and takeovers of government & corporate offices, and D says, “Okay, she doesn’t have to have detention on Halloween.”
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