Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Those kids are my kids

I taught English to poor kids in New York, the richest city in the richest country in the world. I have some incite, now, into the “ism” our culture still doesn’t talk too much about: “classicism.” After five years working with poor kids and socializing with middle to upper class adults, I’ve noticed that Americans with any money maintain a ridiculous fantasy about who the poor are: they look sad and humble; they’re abused and malnourished. Or, they’re Che style angry, only sometimes violent, intellectuals; think Forest Whittaker in Ghost Dog. This image, I think, makes it easier for us to rally behind the poor on issues of education, health care, food stamps, etc. But most poor Americans don’t resemble anything so sympathetic. Americans know that; liberal Americans just don’t like to talk about it. I’d like to talk about it, though. As an English teacher in a New York City public school, I saw how the hard, shiny wealth in the streets carves sharp edges into poor kids. Some of them become not so nice people; neither humble or intellectual. I’d like to talk about those kids, the not so nice kids, the kids in my class.

After seven years, though, of teaching high school, I realize I’ve experienced what may be rarer than the Dodo: compassion for what may be the most loathed type, the bad teenage boy. I’ve loved bad, scary New York teenage Black and Latino boys from poor neighborhoods. And I’m not talking about the sweet ones who succeed despite the odds; I’m not talking about the inspiring types in the movies. I’m talking about the bad ones who stay bad, the ones you probably can’t stand. I don’t blame you. But because I’ve loved them, I want to talk about how bad ghetto boys are a large part of “the poor” we rally behind. Why? Because, I’m not sure we can detest and care about the poor at the same time. Look at them.

The impoverished New York City teenager does not wear tattered rags; he does not walk barefoot; he does not look away from you in shame. His layers of “bling” hide any humility poverty may have given him. He walks with a scary frown and a slow, wide strut, bling jangling along the way. He listens to loud, gangsta rap on the subway and talks loudly along with it without looking at the other passengers’ disgusted faces. He clearly articulates lyrics like, “I’ll fuck your fucking face, bitch,” but the same teenager mumbles incoherently when he gets beyond a counter to take your order. You ask for the third time, “Are you still serving breakfast?” and finally you make out, “Shopservinatleven.”

“You stop serving at 11:00?”

“Yeah.”

“I see, thank you.” The teenager slouches and looks past you, or if he has co-worker friends he talks to them in a dialect barely comprehensible to you.

“Excuse me, if you don’t have breakfast, then I’ll have a sandwich.”

“Ah Haaaaaaaaa. Nigga, I told you, I told you Nigga, that she crazy but you all wanna front and be like, nah, I hit that, Nigga, but she be gettin tight wit you, I told you, Nigga.” Then he turns to you and finally says, “Wha?”

“A sandwich, I’d like a chicken sandwich, please.” You add the polite “please” to hide your disgust for this teenager; the disgust makes you feel racist, and you are not a racist. You feel guilty thinking he’s a useless human being, but that’s exactly what you feel. Here is a human, practically a man, who cannot seem to talk, who cannot stand up straight, who cannot perform at a minimum level of competence at a minimum wage job. You think that maybe we can solve the immigration problem by just offering to ship this teenager and all others like him to live in Mexico and to bring hard working Mexican men to replace him.

You also hate the detritus they leave behind in the parks and streets where you like to walk: empty 40s, chicken bones from spicy chicken wings, fake hair from pulled out weaves. And you think “gross;” why do they let the fucking rappers dictate their choice of libations, why do they eat so much fucking chicken and why do the girls think purple polyester works as a hair substitute? And then you hate yourself for not respecting another culture’s sense of aesthetics.

But you wonder what they’re thinking throwing the goddamn chicken bones on the streets where their prized killing machines choke on them. Surely the choking disturbs the bravado of the daily pit bull show. The dog looks slightly less menacing puking cartilage than it otherwise would. You also wonder if the shit on the streets is part of this dog show, because they sure as hell don’t pick it up.

You see the New York ghetto youth on the nightly news: celebrity rapists and robbers and killers, and despite what you and your liberal friends say about racial profiling and the biased media, there exists the simple truth that black and Latino men commit more violent crime than any other demographic, and no amount of police sensitivity training or balanced reporting will change that fact. The fact does not become less menacing with social commentary on the impetus for the crime. The crimes of history committed against Black men do little to allay your fear of today’s “gangsta” youth. You fear them now, because they commit crimes now, and you hate them a little bit for making you too afraid to walk to the corner at night. Your condemnation of the bigotry they still experience does not expunge your hatred for them. The history of Black oppression and the modern prejudice against all poor people only silence the words to express the hatred you feel in response to that fear. You don’t want to say it, not even to yourself. You won’t think it. But once in awhile when you’re really scared, like when you’re the only white lady on a subway late at night with five other teenage black boys all laughing about somebody they “fucked up,” you let the hate thoughts out. And, of course, it’s like breaking a dam; you can’t stop them. Once you start giving the hate a name you find more people to hate than just the kids who scare you. When you’re alone on the subway, you also hate all the minorities and the white liberals, including yourself, for making you feel guilty about being scared.

They scare you when you see them on the corners and the stoops hanging out in front of someone’s car blasting reggaton or rap, and they scare you when you see them standing in front of delis on their cell phones clearly selling drugs. As ridiculous as it is, they scare you with their pants hanging down to the middle of their ass cracks. And they are all yelling “nigga” all the time and part of you wants to just say, “Yeah, and that’s what you are, you useless pieces of shit.”

These are the kids I taught. “They,” “those kids” are my kids. This is who I spent the majority of my life with for five and a half years. I don’t blame you for hating them. I’m not going to bore you with a saccharine tale of the little Harlem kid who could, the kid who will make you believe all those scary ones might be just like him. They’re not. Most of them are nothing like Will Smith in The Pursuit of Happiness. When I see them on the street I’d sometimes like to punch their stupid faces, but I don’t because I’m afraid they’ll shoot me. But when they sit in my class, I feel differently. I feel like each one of them is an important and good person for different reasons, even though a lot of them are objectively neither.

There’s something insane about being a teacher. I believe a teacher is someone who can look at that ass-crack showing kid and at least see the decent person that student can sometimes be. A teacher is also someone who can look at that ass-crack showing kid and sometimes see the best person that student never even imagined he was. Because I am a teacher, I can sometimes see these great people, like apparitions, like magical visions. I sometimes see them even on days when I am not sure all children can learn, when I am not sure education can improve underprivileged students’ lives.

For example, I had a student named Latique, a name that is a French pre-fix and suffix without a root word. His diminutive name belied his 6 ‘5 height and line-backer girth. At 19, Latique had never passed an academic class outside of summer school and night school. He was in my class for the second time where he continued to do nothing. When he came to class, he came late, entering the room with some sort of joke and kissing all the girls on their cheeks as he sauntered to his seat. When he was in class, he either tried to sleep or attempted to do work but was so lost he monopolized my time with his incessant questions. When he wasn’t in class, he was usually cutting in the school, choosing to loiter the hallways with younger lackeys rather than skip school altogether in New York. Latique had showed me no ambitions or skills. He was bad, but not a bad ass. He didn’t cut school to roam the streets as a thug or a drug dealer. I’m sure he did drugs, but he did not seem to have the ump to actually go into the business. He had enough of a ghetto aesthetic and ghetto attitude to scare white people and to avoid abuse in his own “hood,” but neither fame nor infamy followed him at home or school. In short, Latique was a loser by middle class and ghetto standards.

One day, he came to class on the day we were watching a video about Malcolm X. I watched him pay attention. Not once did he try to put his head down. He raised his hand once and asked me how old Malcolm X was when he died, how old he was when he went to prison and how old he was when he got out. I told him and he replied, “Humph.” He looked sort of hopeful. I figured Latique figured that if Malcolm X could become a famous activist after going to jail as an illiterate drug dealer, Latique might be able to do something. I’ve felt the same way about Malcolm X. I’m sure a million other people have, too, but at that moment, I almost felt like only Latique and I understood how Malcolm X inspires initiative. I sat next to Latique for the rest of the video, and I felt like we empathized with each other’s reactions. This is really hard to explain. I don’t want to exaggerate, because it’s not like I had an epiphany or anything at that moment where I thought, and “yes” Latique can achieve greatness or “yes” poor black boys and middle class white women are actually not so different after all; we can all live together in peace and harmony. I didn’t think any of those things at the time.

I just felt like Latique and I had a functional teacher-student relationship, and I’ll define “functional” as a relationship where we’re understanding and meeting each other’s needs. I wanted to teach something, and Latique agreed to learn it. Latique wanted to learn something, and I agreed to teach it. And that simple teacher-student functional relationship became a medium through which we could recognize one another’s humanity.

After the video, Latique would talk more when he actually came to class. He liked to tell funny stories. In one class, I taught them about introductions in their essays. For the hook to the lesson, I asked them how people introduce each other to a romantic interest. Latique told us the story of how his dad romanced his mom; his dad apparently noticed his mom’s failed attempts to catch a cab in the rain, so he caught one for her. He asked for her number and she said “no.” Latique’s dad responded “ok, get home safely” in such a “g-way” as Latique put it, that his mom succumbed to his charms. Despite the banality of the story, the whole class laughed. Latique was good with timing a plot. He also laughed easily, even at my corniest jokes.

Latique was in my last class of the day, a time when inner city teachers need to laugh or collapse. When he showed up, I can’t pretend I was thrilled. I continued to believe he might succeed, but I also recognized he might not. So, when he showed up to class, I did not feel deep and inspiring hope that he would choose to learn. I did, though, feel like I recognized someone specific. Here was someone who could tell a funny story and who appreciated Malcolm X’s initiative. If he could do those things, he could probably do a million other things that other real people do.

I continued to laugh at his stories, but the more I laughed the more I fought with him about his life’s direction. I yelled at him, called him a mama’s boy, a wannabe gangsta. He would get upset, but he kept coming to class and telling funny stories. Sometimes we liked each other, mostly we didn’t, but I knew that to Latique I was Ms. Mettle and not “Ms.,” and I think he knew that to me he was Latique and not “them.” We had a real relationship and just like in any personal relationship, we believed in each other whether or not either one of us was actually worth anything.

Think about some of the wastoid friends you’ve had, but you knew they could be great with a little more initiative. We see the greatness in our laziest friends and family not necessarily because it’s there and only intimate relations can see it, but because there is something inherently great about connecting to another human being. Connecting makes us believe in each other whether or not we’ve ever said or done anything to actually merit that belief. Maybe when we connect we see ourselves in each other, and then to doubt the other person means to doubt yourself, to believe in the other person means to believe in yourself. We have, I think, more hope for our selves in others than for our own ambitions. If Latique wants to stop procrastinating I believe he can, sometimes more than I believe I can.

I did believe in Latique. I didn’t think he was going to college to become any sort of great professional, but I did come to believe that he could pass my class and by doing so learn how to write a competent essay. I put one of his essays on the “great work” board; he claims it was the only time in his life that had happened. I thought he could maybe work for the MTA where he could get a high paying union job. Latique and I began to talk about ways to make this happen. He brought me the job applications. Despite my belief, though, he still failed my class again, and he is not working for the MTA. Last I heard, he’s still freeloading off of his mother. I’m sure he’s still intimidating white working people in the streets, but I have to say, despite his failure, if I ran into him, I’d be happy to see him. I’d give him a hug, just because we had a relationship.

I didn’t change his life and make him a great man, and he didn’t inspire me with his ability to beat the odds. But I still think our story is important. When people on the corners scare me, my story with Latique helps me remember “they” all consist of an “I.”

I have realized through teaching that the “they” of poor. urban America has become a singular collective noun that looks like Latique. “They” is menacing, but the “I,” less so.

Because I know that Latique is not a “they,” I actually feel more comfortable deriding loud music on the corners, chicken bones on the streets, etc. I think I can dislike parts of another culture without being racist or classicist. Can’t I detest the mini-mansions of the suburban middle class without hating all middle class people? Can’t I scorn the pet accoutrements of the rich without hating all rich people? I don’t want to patronize people by pretending to accept something I can’t stand: “Oh, it’s ok if that’s what you people do.” I also want to be compassionate enough to criticize. If you care about me, you tell me I have lettuce in my teeth. You don’t say, “Oh, Ms. Mettle, she’s just being Ms. Mettle with that lettuce in her teeth. I’ve got to respect that.” Maybe if you tell me I’ll come back and say, “I like this fucking lettuce, back off,” at which point you’ll back off and I’ll go try to find like-minded friends. We might still get together for drinks, though. Surely we have something in common besides the way we eat. If you insist on not criticizing the lettuce in my teeth, maybe it’s because you define me as a food in the teeth person. One epithet, food in teeth.

But a culture has so many facets. There’s always something you can appreciate about another culture; it’s not all or nothing. Poor urban kids act scary in the streets, but they’re also hilarious and really generous. And besides, individuals are more than what defines one culture. People, of course, live in multiple cultures at the same time. Latique was an African-American, a New Yorker, a man, a son, a student, etc. Each of those epithets envelope books of stories, all potential mediums for connecting to all kinds of humans. To strangers, though, Latique of course, is only a scary, poor, urban teenager. People don’t want to talk to people who scare them. So, the middle class people sit around big conference tables and talk about ways to help “those” people, but people who look like Latique are almost never actually at the table.

The idea of it is kind of a joke: someone walking in with all the bling and all the lingo, sitting at the table actually hearing what the people with any money had to say about him and talking back. I can see it as a Chapelle-like sketch:

“Thank you for coming today Mr. Johnson.”

“Yeah.”

“We’d like to talk to you today about your son, Latique. First of all, the name you gave him automatically acts as a disability in today’s professional world. People will read his name and think he is not intelligent or qualified. Did you know that? Also, did you know that all of those chains you’re wearing make people assume you’re uneducated, lacking good taste? Oh, and your language. Please, Mr. Johnson, we are really bothered by your unwillingness to use the linking verb. ‘Latique is my son, not Latique my son, please. ”

I have no idea what Mr. Johnson would say. I think it would be fine if Mr. Johnson said he didn’t give a fuck what the professional world thought of his son’s name; they’d better learn to deal with it. Maybe he’d threaten to sue. Maybe he should. I know, though, that the people with power, especially the liberals, are not telling Mr. Johnson these truths. They just pretend he doesn’t represent the poor they want to defend. In my view, a failure to voice the criticism in our hearts is covert bigotry, the worst kind because it goes around masquerading as compassion.

We liberals defend a demographic that barely exists in America: the humble and intellectual poor and we discriminate against the demographic we claim to champion: the urban poor. Let’s be real.

-Ms. Mettle