Racism and a lack of imagination

The last summer of college I spent at home, I hostessed at a chain restaurant that is known in Ohio for serving breakfast all day.  Until that summer, I didn't know that there were people on earth who ate more than one meal a day at the same restaurant. As it turns out, the usuals at this restaurant often took 2-3 meals a day there. They considered the waitstaff family, their usual tables were just extensions of their homes. During one of my first shifts, the wait staff alerted me to one of the usuals. Val was pegged as "difficult." I quickly learned what qualified Val as difficult. She came in every evening with her two children. She rarely ordered a meal for herself. She ordered kids' meals and ate their leftovers. She sent food back that wasn't to her satisfaction.

I learned that these were high crimes in restaurantville. There is an unwritten code of conduct for being a usual. It requires that one runs up a decent tab and doesn't complain.

I also learned that the penalties for those who broke the code of conduct are just a little bit more severe if your waitstaff is all white and you're aren't white. And Val and her two children? Were black.

I was intimidated by Val. The first time I sat her, I learned my lesson. I started to lead her and her children, with kids' menu packets in tow, toward the back of the restaurant. "Noooope nope no! Not sitting back there. Not sitting in the back of the bus."

Got it. So I was not to sit Val in the back. But if you've ever made your living by playing Tetris with tables, you know that sometimes you can't honor every request. You don't want to slam certain waitstaffers with a fresh crop of tables all at once or there will be hell to pay. I began to perceive Val as a mosquito in the summer. She was always there, but if I protected myself, she wouldn't bite.

The waitstaff groaned about Val in the breakroom. How the manager coddled her. How she tipped poorly. How she sent food back.

Val came in most nights with her children. I don't know if she was married or divorced. Here is what I do remember about my personal encounters with her besides the mistake of seating her in the back: She was polite and quiet. She was always dressed in professional attire as though she was coming from work. She always had a paperback book with her and occasionally would sit reading it at her table while her children ate their meals.

One of the middle-aged hostesses once remarked, "Val is very well-educated."

I remember wondering why Val was the only customer that whole summer I ever heard consistent complaints about, or about the fact that she was "very well-educated."

***

Fifteen years later, I am sitting in my work clothes at a chain restaurant. I am sitting across from my two children, happily occupied by their kiddie menu crossword puzzles. I take the chance for the first time all day to open up a book for pleasure. My husband is not with us as he works most evenings. I am relieved to not have to cook and am reluctant to buy my children their own separate meals when I know I will be finishing their leftovers.

Fifteen years later and I am Val. Except I am not a usual and no one comments on my education level when I bust out my book at a restaurant. When I misplace my gift card, no one questions my intent or ability to pay. When I have to run and get my wallet in the car (long day), our waitress offers to watch my children. I am Val except I am white and therefore I can only fathom how Val felt.

Fifteen years will not absolve me, though. Why did it take me half of my life to understand a faithful patron who wanted what she paid for and who wanted to model for her children the service they should expect in a restaurant?

In other words, why did I lack imagination 15 years ago? Why did I have to wait fifteen years to experience a taste of what Val faced (and chose to face) each day?

The problem we have in dissolving the -isms that poison our lives is that we are lazy imaginaries. Because we are carnivores, we can't imagine what might be difficult for vegetarians at barbecues. Because we never struggle to find shoes in our size, surely those who do are crybabies.  Inconvenience sparks us to change. Make my life difficult and I will modify my systems.

The difficulty in having a lack of difficulty is perhaps the definition of white privilege.

I pray for difficulties. I desire a better imagination. But most of all, I strive for a world where I don't have to fathom any of this, because neither does Val.

Is it too late to run for President?

With the Democratic Party debate tonight, I'm wondering if it's too late to toss my hat into the ring.

My candidacy represents a bridging of generations between Generation X, Y, Z and the digital natives. I offer a regional blend of Mid-western pronunciations, a regular bandying about of the New England modifier "wicked," and an abiding comfort with the Southern contraction "y'all." I was raised super Catholic but converted to Protestantism. So I've got a few sacraments under my belt, will happily place my hand on "a stack of Bibles," and have plenty of Muslim, atheist, and rabbinical pals. I'm married to a Canadian-Korean, so you can trust the White House would be the raddest melting pot full of kimchi potato stew you could imagine.I'll be running on the following platform:

- To adopt the Spanish siesta as a nationwide habit

- To eradicate the use of apostrophes when trying to pluralize words - To retain the separation of church and state but to promote single stream recycling programs - To promote the use of the handy can of Spray Starch you reach for when a burglar enters your home as the only legal weapon

- To enact Stevie Wonder's birthday as a national holiday for Motown-inspired song and for just calling to say I love you. - To require all schools to have hypoallergenic therapy dogs, especially for the teaching staff - To enact an exorbitant tax on abusers of handicapped parking spaces and drivers who hog the passing lane while talking on their phones - To require 300 hours of community service for anyone who mistreats school crossing guards, the elderly, the physically or mentally disabled, and the homeless - To incentivize millennials to have face-to-face conversations - To encourage more United States of Awesomeness

A college professor responds: This American Life #562, #563

The recent two-part This American Life program "The Problem We All Live With" generated a lot of buzz. More than being buzzworthy, though, the investigation offered a real solution to education in America, however difficult it has been and may be to employ. It's so hard for journalism to not offer a thesis statement in order to appear balanced. But this program did more than peel back a few rotting floorboards on schools, which is oftentimes what education reports tend to do. It offered listeners a well-tested theory, a theory that seems so basic that it's laughable: Integration is the most powerful way to bridge the achievement gap between underresourced and well-resourced schools. Period.

It's much easier, one reporter noted, to dream up fixes for failing schools than it is to try to dismantle the systemic racism and classicism that rendered certain schools a failure.

I can get behind this. Even though I've spent less than 10% of my entire student life in public school. I believe in integration not just as an ideal but as a cornerstone of effective education.

I teach at a private university with roughly 40% students of color. It's a pleasure and a privilege to teach this mix of students. We build circles of trust in classes, in residence halls, in intramural sports, in clubs and the hope is that those circles enlarge to spheres much greater than our little campus. Prior to this gig, I taught at a diverse, urban community college. Most--not some--of my students spoke English as a second language. I taught English composition which was a delight since so many students could empathize with one another in the struggle to master another language. My classes came ready-made integrated. College is obviously elective, unlike public schools grades K-12 in which teachers must educate every child. Still, I agree with the findings of TAL: integration is the clutch in the manual car driving us toward educational reform.

But as TAL's reporting demonstrated, integration is the hard-fought battle, often trying to sell school integration without attaching it to the stigma of busing and without tokenizing students. Ayeeee. Hand me that magic wand....

The reason I believe so much in the power of integration goes well beyond my time in the classroom, however. I identified especially with TAL's coverage of parents expecting so much of schools that they "hand-picked" them. Parenting in America has swung so far to extreme protectiveness that schools seem to get stuck in a holding pattern of incubation rather than true education. Are parents in 2015 truly excited about the heightened challenges of their kids' classes or about the independence their children are gaining through projects and extra-curriculars? It does not appear that way, from the little I've gauged. Parents do their kids' entire projects for them. They "coach" by teaching their kids the position for which they want their kid to specialize. Rather than have their child experience the chagrin of sloppy penmanship or the pride of a job completed by hand--the pervasive attitude for parents seems to be akin to the LA Police Department: serve and protect.

Schools have become like restaurants rated on Yelp.com. Friendly service and immaculate facilities will earn high marks. High expectations of students and varied social dynamics are not always comfortable for patrons. Maybe the place down the road will be better--I hear they have even have a Groupon.

Universities are regarded as country clubs that exist to furnish four-star accommodations and luxury amenities. My students will rate me on the ease with which I grade assignments, the accessibility of my lectures, the availability of me in my free time. It is not enough to teach; teachers must aim to please.

Which is why I think TAL's program sounds the battle hymn for every teacher. We are helping to prepare a generation of students who will need to be problem solvers--solutionaries, if you will. These students will need to experience integration, which may (gasp) entail discomfort. These students will need to learn how to resolve conflicts and stand up for their beliefs. They may even need to learn to innovate using a limited budget, versus waiting for their parents to find something suitable on Pinterest to copy.

It's never our goal to fail: our kids, our schools, our communities. But there's an awful lot to learn through failure, largely so that we don't make the same mistakes--systemic and microscopic alike--again.