This morning's walk to school, and other things

James is too sick to go to school, he informs me while jumping on the couch and singing a song. It's a fight to get him into his uniform, into his shoes, into his jacket, so by the time we leave I'm still in my pajamas -- a combination of too-short gym shorts, too-small tank top, old nursing bra, and house slippers. I tell myself it’s a short walk.

There are three small African-American boys walking to school ahead of us, a couple of first-graders and a preschooler who’s at least a foot shorter. It’s a reminder that what we call “free range parenting” or “child neglect” -- depending on your viewpoint -- in the rich, white county next door is what we call “Tuesday” in ours. (For better and worse. But that’s a topic for another day.)

They’re halfway down the block when they abruptly turn around and head back our way. “If we’re gonna be late,” the oldest says to the others, “we might as well just go home.” Well that is every bit as ridiculous as James being “too sick” for school today. So, like any nosy parent, I ask them where they're going. They tense immediately and I understand that I’m not just a mom at this moment, but also a white grown up, the least predictable kind of grown up.

I want to exert parental authority not white authority so I slip into nice-mom mode, even as I have James by the shirt and am dragging him back onto the sidewalk: “James, get out of the road!”

Eyes wide, they look at James for the first time. “Does he go to our school?” they ask with real wonder.

“Yep,” I say.

“Wait,” they ask again, “he goes to this school?” pointing ahead.

James’ best friend in life and at school is a precocious half white-half black boy who, while being 9 months younger than most of the other kindergartners, reads at a second or third grade level. His family is one of our favorites in the neighborhood, his mom a good friend. But skin color is everything everywhere so the oddity of a kid going to “this school” is predicated entirely on James’ blue eyes and blonde locks and not any other socio-economic factor.  James is one of a handful of “white” children in the entire school -- and to my knowledge, the only one in all six kindergarten classes.

The boys are still a little nervous about me but, like children the world over, their curiosity gets the better of them. They want to know why James is looking so sullen and why he doesn’t want to go to school.  “He says he's ‘sick,’” I reply, using my hands for air quotes. “Does he look sick to you?” I’m smiling and arching my eyebrow.

They laugh and chorus back “Nooo!” while James scowls.

We turn the corner and they can see the buses are leaving. “We are late,” they conclude and start to turn again. “Not yet,” I say, “if we run.” Then I start jogging toward the school in my house slippers. “I'm going to beat you,” I taunt. They start running at full clip and make it to the school on time, easily. James knows this trick already and besides, he's doing his best Ferris Bueller impression by now so I have to lope back to move him along. I force a grudging kiss from him, sling his back pack over his arm, and push him toward the school’s front door.

And then it’s just me in an empty parking lot. I’m left with my too-short shorts and my thoughts about skin color and experience.

I know these boys’ experiences with white adults are going to be overwhelmingly negative. They'll have cops hassle them on the street. They'll have women clutch purses as they walk by. It’ll change them. It’ll warp them, living in this world of suspicion and hostility. I make a concerted effort on the street to smile and be friendly to black children, and compliment them to their parents. That's probably evidence of some kind of fucked up white paternalism and entitlement on my part -- not dissimilar to how men expect women to be grateful for attention, even though we just want to be left the hell alone.  But the world is an extra shitty place for black children so maybe it helps to get some smiles and compliments and positive feedback from time to time. 

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In my inner dialogue, I’m a classist, not a racist. Which, I further tell myself, is okay, because middle class values are the right ones and my prejudices are justified. I know I'm not a racist, I muse, because I automatically feel safe with the nicely-dressed black man and feel scared of the hoodie-and-jeans-clad white man on my walk home at night from the metro. Because I feel kinship with middle class black parents -- with our shared views on education and marriage and politics and child-rearing -- and feel none with my fellow Caucasians in other socio-economic classes, be they the Mitt Romneys or the Honey Boo Boos.

But from time to time, I catch glimpses into my own internalized prejudices about black men and boys.

A neighbor reported seeing some kids start a fire at a local park a few weeks ago. I pictured black teenagers. I felt fear, I instantly imagined the stereotypical “thug” and the threat of a wave of neighborhood arson.  Then the neighbor described three Latino sixth graders and I felt my fear dissipate. My conscious mind caught the tail end of an almost entirely subconscious thought: “Latino kids, that's okay. They're probably good kids who were just playing around. I'm sure I did the same when I was their age.” One action, but two different visceral reactions based on my perceptions of the actors. Somewhere a switch in my brain was set to black-kids-cause-trouble-Latino-kids-don’t, and I didn't even know it. It sickened me. Every day we make decisions and rationalizations based on how we feel, and how we feel can be guided entirely by our absorbed prejudices without our knowing it.

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I am lost in my thoughts now, thinking about the Rosenthal effect: Choose children at random. Tell their teachers that those children are particularly gifted. Watch those randomly-chosen children rise to meet the high expectations of their teachers. We rise -- or fall -- to the level of expectations set for us. What happens when we take sweet little black boys, with wide grins and toothy smiles, and teach them that the world hates and fears them?

I tug uncomfortably on my shorts and adjust my slippers. I walk home.