Sounds About White- A white guy's perspective on how not to teach like a white guy.

It is an interesting topic to discus, how one will be culturally responsible in the classroom, because we are, for the most part, talking about these things as just theories and can yet to put them into practice. It is one thing to say, “I would jump in front of a bullet for you.” But it’s another thing to actually start jumping when the bullets start to fly. Like the chapter in Pose, Wobble, Flow, it is okay to feel uncomfortable and uneasy about these topics, but it is not okay to do nothing. I, like most prospective teachers, always say that it’s a goal of mine with my classroom to make everyone feel seen, represented and respected. A good place to start would be to make sure that the populations most often disenfranchised are given a greater slice of the representation classroom pie. From my own experience I learned what equal representation was not.

Where I went to high school, there was a few dozen Latinx students and exactly one (1) person of Jamaican descent, the rest was white. It’s important to note that this wasn’t just the normal whiteness, this was advanced whiteness.  Gun tote’n, wall buildin’, blue lives matter, hard R, kind of white people. It was a weird place for me to spend four years because every bit of me rejected what was so deeply ingrained in this society. Ibram X. Kendi, author of The Book that Made Me: Learn How to Love, said that love is one of the most important aspects of human connection that we have. While living there, I was constantly reminded that in order for these people to grow past the bigotry and racism that they cannot even see, they must first learn why it’s important to love those who do not look like us. It was said that, “I want a world, a United States of Love, where black lives matter because humans love.” As a culturally responsible teacher, I will lead my classroom with love for my students, their identities, and the communities they belong to. It is so interesting to see people leave Pinedale, Wyoming, and grow as people. They shed their veils of ignorance and finally see that their parents’ political views are not their own and that they are capable of growing up and moving past their injustices. My former classmate, Caitlin Tan, wrote an article for the University of Wyoming’s newspaper about the towns use of “red face”. It’s called Wearing ‘red face’: A changed perspective.

As for myself, one aspect of my growth does involve the Fourth of July. As a child I was born in Bristol, RI, which is the home of the oldest ongoing Fourth of July Celebration. As a Bristolian, the Fourth was my shiiiiit. Red, white, and blue, getting up early to put out chairs for the parade, fireworks, carnival, the whole thing. I was proud at the fact that even though my growing distaste for the United States, that I still enjoyed celebrating the Fourth of July. That was until my freshman year of college when I had a professor, who absolutely called me out for enjoying a racist holiday. She was rumored to be a former member of the Black Panther Party and was a strong woman who stood a TALL 5’5”. She said, just like the What to an American Is the Fourth of July author, that people of color, in this country, are absolutely not free. At least not in the same way me as a white person is free. I had to come face to face with the reality that my experience is one that is free from prejudice and the racially instigated laws and traditions that permeate every American household. It was after speaking with her I realized that “[white people] will continue to rebel to keep their power” (Kendi), I realized that the fight for equality did not end when the slaves were freed, or African Americans were allowed the right to vote. That fight absolutely does not end when the morning bell rings, or when my student leave at 3 o’clock, “there’s no such things as an apolitical position in teaching. Choosing not to disrupt the status quo is itself a political choice” (Garcia & O’Donnell-Allen). Just as the professor made her position very clear in her classroom, I look forward to doing the same.