What My Students Have Taught Me About Race

At the end of each term, my students read an excerpt from Invisible Privilege by Paula Rothenberg. The story, a true one, is about two young girls: Rothenberg’s own daughter, Andrea, and her black friend Jewel, who became best friends in elementary school. However, as the girls grew older, they became increasingly distant from one another even though both mothers wanted to nurture a lasting friendship between them.

In the story, little Jewel was attending the school district illegally, claiming her grandmother’s home address instead of her parents’ who lived outside the district. The Rothenberg family was upper middle-class; Jewel’s family was pure working-class. The Rothenbergs had flexible work schedules, while Jewel’s parents had difficulty arranging times for the girls to meet outside school. The girls’ relationship cooled considerably after Andrea visited Jewel’s home for the first time. To Andrea, Jewel’s inner city home seemed cramped and dark, and she was uneasy around Jewel’s large extended family. Later, the school Jewel attended began checking the residency status of their students in the district.

I asked my students to analyze this ill-fated relationship by looking at racial bias, class bias, and a conflict of cultures. Elements of each are found in the story. Then, I asked if they HAD to choose, which of the three factors had the greatest impact on the girls and their families?

For me, having lived my entire life during the Civil Rights era, it was obvious: race had the greatest impact, while class and culture, although important, were secondary factors.

It is funny how different generations can look at the same situation and reach totally different conclusions. Of twenty-six students (13 white, 5 black, 4 Hispanic, and 4 Asian American), thirteen chose “class” and seven students chose “culture” as the main reason the girls failed to form a lasting friendship. Three couldn’t decide, and only three agreed with me that race was the key element.

My biggest surprise was that young people today–black or white–don’t see race as the insurmountable obstacle it was years ago. They think racism (in all its forms) can be conquered or gotten around–like using grandma’s address rather than your own. Many students think the next civil rights battle will be over the concentration of wealth, fearing an economic future where they’ll be living in Jewel’s house rather than the Rothenberg’s. And, let’s be honest, civil rights generation. Upward mobility has slowed, wages have flattened, and poverty is more difficult to escape for both blacks and the emerging white underclass.

I believe that our newest generation has come closest so far to judging others by “the content of their character rather than the color of their skin.” Even President Obama owes this generation a debt of gratitude because young voters were the decisive factor in his reelection.

I asked my twentysomethings had Jewel been white would her family have been investigated? In other words, I’m not ready to completely abandon my “old school” perspective about the primacy of race in American life.

This I believe: “And a little child shall lead them.”