A fourth grade teacher shared some of the issues she’s been dealing with lately in her classroom.  There seems to be a racial war that begins in elementary schools long before people even recognize that racial tension exists among children.  There is in the primary grades a sense of them and us:  those who speak Spanish and those who don’t, those who have color and those who don’t, those who have parents and those who don’t, those who have a home and those who don’t.

Some of these issues are the planting of the seed that ultimately develops into a deeply-felt sense of racism and prejudice and injustice.  And there is a cultural war going on as well.  In order to truly understand the conflicts that are occurring, you have to understand the root cultures at play. 

At the younger grades, the weapon of choice among the Hispanic population is the use of words, particularly as they acclimate to the school culture of the United States.  These are the children who have been acclimating to a foreign culture for years.  These are the ones who are learning to play the game, who are learning how to find the words in English, how to follow the rules, how to just make it by.  I love these students.  They are fighting against a system that is prejudiced against them from the beginning, that tells them their language has no value, their culture has no value, their citizenship is in jeopardy and their future in this country is in doubt.  These are the students who fight for everything we would deny them as a culture and as a race.  They stand up and they find their way despite the many obstacles we present them, including an education that would deny them their identity.

Then there are my African-American students who fight so desperately for anyone to even notice their existence.  I adore these students too.  They are the ones fighting against a system that has been built to keep them down since the days of slavery.  These are the students who will fight that system for the rest of their lives, trying desperately to gain those things the rest of us take for granted, by virtue of our whiteness.  These are the students many claim are destined for prison or death:  born in the inner city, stricken by poverty, held under the thumb of a system that provides a lower-quality education (by virtue of inadequate funding and inequitable resources) and a systematic prejudice that will not be defeated through any of our best efforts.  These are the students who come to school day by day with heartbreak in their eyes, hope in their trembling smiles, and defeat in the slump of their shoulders.  Already.  At age 7. 

Then there are my white students who tremble in our school doorways, timidly approaching their education with fear in their hearts.  And yes, I adore these children too.  They are the ones completely forgotten and ignored by society.  Society does not acknowledge the white child attempting to make it in the inner city schools.  They do not exist.  They cannot exist because they have been given something the others just don’t have — white skin.  That they too suffer under the umbrella of poverty is of no consequence.  Why do they not live up to the promise of their skin?  Because they too have been abandoned, the unfortunate casualties of the war waged against the weak. 

 And so society turns its back on the children of its inner cities and leaves their future to the will of the beast.  And the beast is poverty.

There was a fight on the playground among the 4th graders.  A Hispanic child called a black child a nigger.  The black child laid out the Hispanic child with one punch.  Who do you think was suspended?  Who do you think got off with a lecture and nothing more?  The black child was suspended for fighting.  The Hispanic child received no true consequences from the office.  Which of those children is in more danger today of not surviving their upbringing?  The Hispanic child who has not been taught the consequences of shouting a racial slur on the playground or the black child who defended his entire race against that slur?

These two children’s teacher had a sit-down session with her entire class and discussed with them the unacceptability of using such racial slurs against anyone. 

 One student raised his hand and said, “yeah, but I don’t like it when they call me African-American either.”

His teacher asked, “Well, what do you want people to call you?”

“I just want them to call me a boy,” the ten-year-old replied. 

 How utterly and singularly profound.  “Just call me a boy.”