Talk With Your Children About Racism, Poverty, and Dr. King

When I was in the third grade, I sat next to an African American girl. I can't remember her name, but I remember very clearly the day she didn't show up for class. We all assumed she was sick, but about three hours into the day she suddenly appeared at the door, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"What's going on?" the teacher asked.

"I missed the bus, and I had to walk to school!" the girl stammered, choking back the sobs.

At this, the teacher quickly called for the office, and an aide came and took the girl away. About an hour later, she returned and took her seat next to me. She was no longer in tears, but obviously still upset. She sat quietly for the rest of the day, and no one in the class - including the teacher - said another word about what had happened.

Only as I grew older did I put the pieces together:

This girl was one of the students bussed from the inner city of Greenville, SC out to the suburbs where I lived. Her walk was about 6-8 miles on busy city streets. Think about that for a second.
And think about why a scared 8-yr old decided to make that journey instead of going home or to a neighbor's house. These days, I can understand the social realities that frame this story, and I can see that deep-seated issues of poverty and racism contributed to the circumstances that led to her dangerous decision.

That incident happened 20 years after The March on Washington and Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech, and in some ways it indicates improvement. My elementary school in the Deep South was integrated, after all. But in other ways, it indicates how far we have to go with education and awareness - even today.

Looking back on that day, it strikes me that the white kids had no idea what had happened. We didn't know how far away she lived, and we didn't think to ask why we weren't being bussed into her neighborhood instead. We didn't know that she had been taken to see a social worker, and that she had gone into state custody the minute school was out. Most importantly, we didn't consider that our sheltered suburban upper middle class lives were not the lives that some of the kids in our class were living.

Perhaps this is where we can turn a corner on the racism and the classism that is so persistent in our culture. Perhaps we need to give children the opportunity to understand and process the social realities around them, instead of presenting the world as some fairy tale bubble of abundance and equality to get burst at age 15, or 25, or 45, or never.

I was fortunate that I grew up in a family where social issues were common topics at the dinner table. But even I grew up with a level of naivete and ignorance about the problems being endured by the kid who sat right next to me - a naivete that can translate all to easily into adult attitudes of callousness and denial about poverty and race.

So tonight, I am going to gather my two boys - ages 7 and 8 - and watch the "I Have A Dream" speech with them. The whole speech. And then, I'm going to ask questions and listen, and help them get a better understanding of the reality many of their classmates in our desperately poor rural county in Virginia are facing. I encourage us all to do the same.