Fear of being misunderstood keeps race issues off the table

Even though he is always pleasant and articulate, an African American teacher fears that others see him as menacing.

A Caucasian teacher was told that she wouldn't be able to work with Latino migrant children because she wasn't a minority, "and wouldn't understand" what the children need.

A Latino teacher who occasionally puts his cap on backwards says he is immediately mistaken for a gang member.

These were just some of the stories teachers shared during a workshop titled "Putting Race Back on the Table" at CTA's Equity and Human Rights Conference. Equal Justice Society President Eva Paterson facilitated the session.

Fear of being misunderstood is what keeps people from talking about race, says Paterson. She maintains that, for the past two decades, Americans have been in denial about the pernicious effects of unaddressed racial bias and discrimination.

The current attempt to promote the notion of a 'colorblind society' is part of that denial, she asserts. Recent research by social scientists has shown that racial bias is part of the fabric of society.

Polls indicate that most Americans believe that discrimination is over, because a few minorities — Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice — are in high places, said Paterson, but it's lightyears away from the truth.

"We will talk about everything else, but we don't talk about race — even though it's the elephant in the room," said Paterson, a former professor at Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco. She offered participants the use of the workshop as a safe place to discuss the subject without being called racist.

"People are hungry to talk about race and their experiences because there are very few places where we can do so. And it's important because we need to know each other's stories. We need to learn from each other."

Teachers, clearly hungry for the opportunity, said they had various reasons for attending the workshop. Some wanted to better understand their students and their families, to stop racism at their schools or to learn enough to facilitate discussions with their students. Others just wanted to share their experiences with fellow educators in an effort to understand the context of the discrimination they had experienced personally.

One teacher said her students think all white people have it easy and live in big houses with walls lined with gold. "Some people automatically hate me because I'm white and think that I'm a liar," she said, adding that she realizes the prejudice she has experienced is not on a par with that experienced by African Americans and other minorities.

"I have to put my blackness on hold and step back and listen to you," said Paterson, acknowledging that part of her wanted to say, "Girl, you have no idea what suffering is."

"I need to talk with you without my barriers up. I have some learning to do, too," said Paterson.

Another member of the audience said that she no longer associates being "white" with being rich. "Instead, I think of white trash," she said.

An African American teacher confided that she has problems dealing with the "black on black" discrimination she sees within her own people. For example, when her brother came to visit her, one of her best friends called the police "because she didn't think he belonged here."

"What it's come down to is that we are sometimes afraid of each other," she says. "I think that's terrible."

Most people, said Paterson, do not realize they have an "unconscious" bias about people of color. "Most people are not stone-cold racists, although there certainly are some in our society. Most people don't think that black people are genetically inferior and white people are devils. Most people are not racist consciously, but they are unconsciously, which adds up to institutional racism. This is the challenge that faces us, and it makes a lot of teachers feel very uncomfortable."

While it is extremely difficult for people to talk about race, it is dangerous to avoid the subject, said Paterson. "We keep hearing people say they are 'colorblind,' but the only way to be colorblind is to have a bag over your head," she said. "The danger is when people say they are colorblind and then use the argument that color doesn't matter as a way to attack affirmative action and other equity programs. They come up with phrases that sound good, but these phrases are used to mask something that is much more sinister."

Paterson congratulated the teachers for being willing to engage in a risky discussion and for their courage in talking about such a tough subject.

"We have to have courageous conversations like this so we can try to figure things out. We have to acknowledge that it's going to be messy. We don't have the magic to resolve all of the racial issues facing us today, but we can make a start."