Sunday, April 19, 2009

Art and Life

We saw the movie American Violet today. Based on a true story, it involves a Texas D.A. who, working with the county sheriff's department, targeted Black residents of government-subsidized housing projects and arrested them in sweeping narcotics raids. Once imprisoned, they were offered a plea, often with no jail time, but which ultimately resulted in a felony conviction on their records. As a result of the conviction, these individuals lost the right to vote, access to welfare, WIC coupons, and food stamps, their jobs, and, in many cases, their homes. Most did not realize that these could be consequences of the plea-bargain when they made the choice. If they chose to fight the charges, which their public defenders recommended strongly against, their cases were backlogged, and because of exorbitant bail, they often were forced to remain in prison for months before ever seeing the inside of a court room. American Violet is the story of one young woman who was innocent and held out despite the personal hardship. Eventually, she became the lead plaintiff in an ACLU-assisted suit against the DA, the county, the sheriff and all his officers.

It's a good movie, and I saw it with two other teachers. All three of us are white, and we were properly outraged at the injustice depicted in the film. On the way home, we started talking about our African-American students, because at our schools, these kids are disproportionately represented when it comes to discipline. In the movie, the D.A. (who is ultimately unmasked as racist) is asked why, if African-Americans constitute less than half of the population of the county, they represent 85% of the drug convictions. "I guess they're just the ones using the drugs," he answers.

This is similar to what teachers say when asked about the discipline stats at our school. Those are just the kids who misbehave-- if a white kid acted like that, I'd write him up, too. I don't mean to imply intentional racism on the part of me and my colleagues, but I do think that we must be vigilant of our own biases and how they impact our students. Perhaps what we find tolerable and manageable is influenced by our culture and experience. What is considered to be youthful exuberance in one setting becomes disruptive behavior in another, and students who have little reason to trust established authority may not respond as quickly to our redirection as we would like. Because most of our teachers are white, such a dynamic might explain the inequity in discipline referrals.

As teachers, we cannot afford to be defensive; the stakes are too high. I once noticed a sign on a classroom wall that read, "An error does not become a mistake until you refuse to correct it." That's good advice for us all.

1 comment:

  1. I think also that many of us whites are not used to how other slices of our own culture act and behave. When my friend (who was married to a black man) talked to me about young black men not looking someone in the eyes because if they did in their neighborhoods, it was a challenge and potentially dangerous. Whites tend to look on that as impolite. Being friends with her has taught me a lot of these tiny differences--huge differences and I'm just sort of starting to get it. A little.

    I'll be looking for that movie on Netflix. It sounds fascinating.

    Elizabeth

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