The Mississippi Teacher Corps summer training included some warnings about confrontations with students and physically threatening situations, all of them as I recall centered in the classroom; and there was surprisingly little talk of the effect on these situations or on the classroom environment of being, in most cases, the only white person (or Asian person, or. . .) in the room.
In these first three weeks I have generally felt no substantial effect of my whiteness in the classroom. A few students have made small jokes about whiteness or blackness, but I have always had the impression that they would have been hardly less likely to make them with a black teacher. Almost all of my classes have at some point become briefly distracted by questions of my race, students abruptly changing the subject from, say, transitive and intransitive verbs, to asking bluntly, “What race are you?” or sometimes something more subtle to the same effect. One class insisted that I didn’t look American, and one student in it continually asserts that I must be from Paris (still further, that I look like a magician from Paris — what her experience could be of Parisian magicians in rural Mississippi I am not able to guess). Many students have squared me away as Spanish, and at least as many as “Middle Eastern,” which they most often interpret, quite simply, as “Iraqi.” (I have been so questioned elsewhere, and the usual identifications are Spanish and Jewish — both at least somewhat correct — and I suppose my students might be making the same identifications from within a more limited framework.) I have usually not felt that my students perceived the racial segregation and politics here so acutely as I have, or at least that they were so unsurprised by them that they seemed not to notice anymore.
Friday night was the first football game, and all faculty were “on duty” and assigned to posts. I was standing for the whole game at the gate on the visiting team’s end. The team we played had maybe one or two black players, and one black cheerleader; all others were white. Virtually everyone whose ticket I took was white. The other side of the field was all black. I knew that these games happen, but actually seeing a football team of whites lined up against a football team of blacks, their families and friends cheering on their respective sides of the field — and two separate gates for their entry! … somehow my knowledge that it happens left me no less surprised to see that it actually does. Maybe it happens everywhere to one degree or another. It was actually my first high school football game.
I was not sure if the faculty was supposed to stay for the whole game, and there was nobody nearby for me to ask, so I stayed. When the game ended and I began the walk to the other side of the field, toward the school and the parking lot and my car, I saw few teachers, and assumed most had left toward the end of the game. Many of my students saw me and said hello, wished me a good weekend. One commented that I must be tired. (It was 10:30pm, and I had been on campus since 6:45am; I was still wearing a tie; and though nobody else knew it, because of the chance load of my schedule that day I hadn’t even eaten anything since dinner the previous night.)
As I got to the front parking lot the crowd was a bit rowdier. I noticed for the first time since I’ve been in Mississippi that I was the only white person. I put the thought out of my mind, taking it to be an unseemly one. It was dark, and I thought I heard someone shouting, “Mr. Pollack,” as several of my students had just done on the other side of the building before friendly exchanges of greetings. I turned in the direction of the call, and saw a group of maybe four or six teenagers, but they weren’t looking toward me and I thought I might have imagined my name. I reached my car, unlocked it, and opened the door, and heard from the same direction my name again, this time followed with, “Get your white ass outta here,” and “Go back to Iraq.” I shook my head and continued into my car, put on my seat belt, turned the key, and put it in reverse. After backing out of my space and turning the wheel, as I was shifting into drive but before the gear was engaged, I see these kids running up behind my car, covering their faces with hats and t-shirts. I hesitate before pulling forward and they start banging on the back of my car. I begin to pull forward and they run away laughing.
It occurs to me that banging on the back of somebody’s car could be quite light-hearted, though obscuring one’s face as one does it makes the act rather more threatening. I am sure these kids were in my fifth or sixth period class, or perhaps a few from each, though I’m not sure who they were. I am somewhat sure, maybe 80% sure, that I know who one of them was, the one who seemed to be the ring-leader, but I am not sure enough.
There were cops just around the corner. I was probably not ever in actual danger. Nevertheless, I’m not sure how to feel about the encounter. At the time I wanted nothing else but to eat something and go to sleep, and would entertain thoughts of no other action. And maybe in a dark and crowded parking lot after a football game it is plainly and always foolish to engage half a dozen apparently hostile people, even if their hostility might not be wholly serious. But I am bothered with the idea that their overtly aggressive gesture was met in their minds with a hasty retreat, that from their view they forced an authority to submit, that they won dominance, and that discipline problems they have already presented to me might now become worse.
Robbie,
Wow. To stick my nose where it perhaps needn’t go, I think you might have done better to have laughed the events off publicly at that moment, but I doubt you’re in any serious danger of being labeled a coward. As a kid so obviously (and perhaps comically) white that in the last eight years black people and I have tended to find a strange but comfortable common ground, your experience is striking to me. I have been so well-served in Maryland (and to a lesser extent D.C.) by simple, regular, and active friendliness that it’s hard for me to imagine that stopping, sticking your head out the window, and saying “how’s it going?” wouldn’t have reestablished the civility that can connect black and white people. But civility is conscious, especially that of the South, and your students may have been deliberately exceeding its bounds with more abandon than my optimistic mind can believe to be real. I’ve certainly had little occasion to talk to black people in the deep South, with my few memorable conversations taking place at gas stations and the like. Nonetheless, I feel more wary of white folks in the country, as a Northern city boy, than I do black folks. I suspect that Mary may feel otherwise, as she’s suggested to me, but only because she’s less likely to distrust countryfolk than I, the suburbanite.
In any case, yours and my experiences will naturally differ, which is something that should color my observations. Forgive my presumption: you are more quiet and self-possessed, as I recall, whereas I am inclined towards a sort of bluster when needed and when I’m comfortable. My spirit is political, I find, by which I mean I want people to like me and to get along in friendship. You seem to direct yours toward careful observation (very much an activity of the spirit) and deeper kindness than I find possible. Ppeople like me, therefore, and perhaps those from the country, may feel they need to check in with you, to see what you’re doing, since you’re not necessarily telegraphing it. As a consequence, you may get more unwanted attention than I might, although I suspect I may have gotten the same “white ass” comment you did.
Your real question was about the effect of your perceived flight upon the future success of your class. I would, had I guts enough, make it a point to talk to the ringleader, possibly in class. I would not mention a thing about Friday’s evening’s rappings, but just show him that you’re going to be checking in with him, too. I imagine one of your knowning smiles at the right moment would be all the allusion you need. As to the specifics of your speech, that’s a difficult matter, since singling him out as ignorant or the like could be harmful. The words may not need be too many. After all, as you’ve said, you’re not upset or hurt by the event–and you certainly don’t benefit from interpreting it as being malicious–you just need to establish your good humor and the worth of the civility you and the students can share.
Advice sucks, especially when it’s unsolicited. It’s a poor mode of speech. I really just wanted you to know that I was thinking about your interesting posts this weekend, and this seemed the one I could say the most about. Thanks for writing this!
Also, um, stay safe.