As I've been scrolling my newsfeeds on various social media sites... a question came up that I need help answering;"What are we going to do with our anger?"
In April of 2012, I wrote a blog about Generation Apathetic standing up for the injustice of Trayvon Martin. Now, a year and 3 months later the verdict is Not Guilty. What am I going to tell my students now? Better yet, what am I going to tell myself? What answer can I give them that will give them hope?
Three years ago, a Mexican middle schooler that had an anger problem said that there was no point in him trying in school ( he was smart and I was encouraging him to do better) because people were always going to look down on him.
A year ago, my Caucasian student told me George Zimmerman was going to get off. I told him he was probably right but I hope not.
For a 145 days a year, I see and teach young Black males and I'm constantly telling them about the system and how it works against them. I'm constantly telling them to pull their pants up, take the picks out of their heads, remove those grills from their mouth, stop blaring the music, get smaller earrings, stop tatting up their entire body, and a slew of other things so that they can remain "free men." I tell them everything I tell my two brothers and I plan to tell my nephew as he becomes of age. Yet, I struggle with why I tell them those things when it appears that at the end of the day, week, month, year it boils down to one thing:race.
Yes, people are arguing about socioeconomic status but all I can think about are cases where people of fairer skin have gotten off with little to or no punishments due to their lighter skin tones; Casey Anthony, about 3 female teachers caught having sex with students, George Zimmerman, and the list can go on but I don't have time to list them all. In my experience, Race trumps socioeconomic status 95% of the time. Its hard to give hope when its crushed on a daily basis. Its hard to encourage when "reasonable doubt" is rarely on your side. As John Romano said in his TBT article today, "Legal verdict can't mask greater truths."