March 2025

February 2025

January 2025

Racism is Not Genetic

Five of my 2 years with LAUSD I taught high risk junior high school children in a self-contained bungalow, separate from the main school, at the back of the school’s parking lot.

We had our own entrance, and ½ hour differences in the start and end of our day.

There could be no contact, my students were gang members, and their lives could be in danger from possible rival gangs on campus.
My 22 students consisted of 2 Latina girls and 1 Black girl, 1 Black male, 1 White male and 17 Latino males.

The White male, Gary, was in my class for protection for what reason, I had to learn, and I did.

It took me a while to figure out why, daily, I had to tell Gary to get off the top of his desk and sit in it correctly.

He would brace his desk against the back wall, so that he could sit on the back support, with his feet in the chair’s seat, supporting his work on his knees.
One day I had a flashback.  “The King and I.”  No one’s head could be higher than the King’s!

Gary was showing his perceived superiority to the minorities with whom he had to share the classroom.

I scolded myself for such thinking.  Then came another trigger for such thinking.

The month came when we had persistent, daily, cold rain.

Gary came, wearing a T-shirt and wet hair clinging to his scalp.  He always had an excuse.  “He was running late, so he left his jacket.”   The next day, “I lent my jacket to a friend, and he forgot it,” or “He left it over his neighbors,” and they weren’t at home.”

I realized after the 3rd day, that he had no jacket.

The next day I kept him after everyone had left, and I gave him a hooded, canvas jacket with faux sheep wool lining. 
I told him truthfully, that I had bought it nearly a year ago, on sale – no refund, for my youngest son, and it was too small.  I said he’d be doing me a favor by taking it.  He thanked me and took it.

Next day, he entered my classroom, soaked to the skin, as usual.  I asked him where was his jacket.  He said he forgot it.

After the 3rd consecutive day of, “forgetting it,” I said privately, “Gary, if you’re not going to wear the jacket, bring it back.”  He said, O.K., and returned it, in a bag, the next day.

What occurred next made me certain of the earlier thought I had, for which I had scolded myself.

Every Friday when I returned graded papers, Gary would storm up to my desk and slam his paper down and angrily demand to know why I had marked his answers wrong.  He would yell, “They are not!  You grade this paper again!  You graded it wrong!

I’d say, ”Gary, why am I wrong, and you’re not?”

He’d answer, “Because I am smarter than you are!!”

I’d say, “What makes you smarter than I am?”   He’d say, “I just am!”

I continued with Gary because I needed to know why he thought as he did.

I said, “It doesn’t count that I’ve been on this earth 50 years and you only 14?   Or that I’ve had 18 years of education?  Or that I’ve been teaching 20 years?”
He narrowed his eyes and said through clinched teeth, “I am smarter than you are!”

I said, “Gary, Guillermo got a higher grade than you did, does that mean that I graded his paper right?”

Gary said, “I guess he’s smarter than I am.”  I said, “Guillermo is possibly smarter than you are, but I am not?”  Gary said again, “I’m smarter than you are!”
I needed to know, so I said, “Gary, Sam (who is Black) got a higher grade than you did, is he too, smarter than you are?”  Gary said, “No, he is not! He got lucky, or he cheated.”

I knew now that my first thought had been right.  This child was ingrained with racism, probably taught to him from birth.

I said, “Here Gary.  Take the key and check your paper!” 

He came back and slammed the key down.  I asked him what he had found.  He angrily answered, “So I made a mistake! What are you going to do, kill me?”  As time went on, nothing changed with Gary.  We had the same scenario every Friday. He was a troubled child.  He would not have been in this class, wee he not.

Gary showed me, it seems, what many White children are taught.  It is not genetic Racism.

“No matter what you lack in life, you will always be smarter and better than any and all Black people, regardless of their age or station in life.  You were born superior, the same as they were born inferior. They are easily identified by the color of their skin – the Stain of Stupid!”

I would not be surprised to learn that Gary was a member of some subversive group that is making our country what most of us thought we’d never see again.

Gary is as much a victim as the people he possibly/probably victimizes.

How far away is the generation that will change that? 

The plight of Poor Whites and Blacks.

Lora Harrington Pride  3/01/25