The shark vs the water

N-son and J-son,
back when J-son was cute and geeky.

So, J-son has been wanting for years to get into the welding program at our local high school. On the carrot side, he's really good at building stuff (like bionicles and legos); on the stick side, he's dyslexic and hates-hates-hates the regular classroom, and (back on the carrot side) he knows welders earn big bucks. He's had every reason to want to get into this welding program, and he finally did, and we were all excited . . . and then he went to the orientation.

At the orientation, there was a giant auditorium full of kids, and J-son was the only black kid there. And he immediately dropped out of the program. He might try again after high school, enrolling at our school of technology, but he just doesn't want to spend a year in those social circles; he'd rather be back in his majority-black high school classes, even though he hates the classes themselves.

(For what it's worth, most of the kids in that welding program are from a rural area near here, where about a month or so ago there was a KKK gathering. As sad as I am about J-son pulling out of the program, I both understand and -- reluctantly -- support his decision.)

Me, I can remember the last time I walked into a room full of people where I was the only white person -- it was 2007, a local AME church.  It was a fabulous experience at the same time that it was a massively uncomfortable experience, a memorable experience. But it's not an everyday experience for me, and I know that makes my life different.  I might say, "I don't care about the color of people's skin". . . but the truth is, I don't have to, because I live my life comfortably in the majority bubble of whiteness.

My son's teachers are white. Their doctors are white. Our neighbors are white.  The actors we see at the theater are white. Even people in the daily newspaper comics are white (there are more talking animals than there are people of color -- what does that tell you about race in mainstream American culture?).  So right now, I'm feeling SUPER sensitive to presentations of people, and what that means for my teenage sons.

I love this photo.  But I don't want this to be the message
I send my students about who owns the mathematics
in  our book.

Presentations of people.  A few weeks ago, I got a trial photo, something that might be a cover for our future book.  (We don't have a publisher confirmed yet, but we're pretending like this book is going to work anyway).  One of my coauthors (who is not herself white -- her parents came from Japan) spent a great deal of time prepping and shooting a photo of a dancer who embodies a certain aspect of projections of triangles.  It was a beautiful trial photo, an awesome idea.  But I was all caught up in thinking about my sons; and a white, semi-clothed, ballerina hit too many chords of race and gender and class for me.  My coauthors and I had a heart-to-heart.  We're going to try again, but next time with a hip-hop dancer.

When the Klan was preparing their visit, and our community was reacting with predictable horror and counter-protest marches of faith --- by which I mean, the white community was reacting with horror etc --- my African American friends had a different reaction.  As one friend/hero/mentor wrote on her blog:

The problem is that when the Klan comes to town, you see the Great White shark that threatens you . . .  but suppose “white supremacy is the water”?

And of course she's right.  Truth is, whiteness is indeed everywhere.  (I mean, seriously, where are the black people in the comics?)  And the "everywhere" thing is the hard part.  It's not the hate aspect of white supremacy that threatens my sons.  It's the complacency aspect of it, the idea that well-intentioned people have when we say that diversity means "not caring about people's skin color".   My sons care about their skin color, every day.  It's a big deal for them, partly because they carry their skin with them wherever they go.

One of J-son's favorite new photos of himself.
Not so geeky anymore.

But also for my sons, there's so, so much more than skin color.  Race is tied to geography.  (One of J-son's black buddies was overwhelmed by the fact that J-son lives in such a faraway white neighborhood).  Race is tied to music (do the kids in the welding class listen to hip-hop, or to Country?).  Race is tied to clothing, to hair styles, to diction, to affect.  It's not enough to say, "we don't mind that you don't look like us" when, for my sons and lots of other kids, the differences are so much more than looks, and when the access barriers are so much more than whether people "care/notice/mind" skin color.

When the people who surround us every day look and act like us, we have to be extra careful to care about race and culture and everything that goes with that.

It's not only about whether I, or other majority white people, "care" about skin color.  It's just as much about whether J-son and other people of color feel like owners, or merely like guests, or (even worse) like interlopers.  It's about the water, not about the sharks.