Articles

I remember the times when I gave up and fought/ When I succumbed to the jokes and taunts/ Reverting to the man I once was, violent and stupid,/ But I won’t let these people manipulate me/ I will become the man I want to be

The transition from middle school to ninth grade creates chaos for students. In eighth grade, students know their teachers and their classmates. They have a safe academic home. Then comes high school.

One clear advantage of extracurricular activities is that they tend to get students’ undivided attention. Most young people have a real connection to their sports team, choir, theater group or other organization. The coach, director or advisor enjoy unique opportunities to see students really concentrate on a consistent basis. This creates a powerful opportunity for us as educators when it comes to issues of diversity. We can model fairness, equity and inclusion, as well as provide experiences for our students to be exposed to positive diversity messages.

New evidence of the bullying crisis in our schools appears daily in news reports and blogs. For some students, verbal harassment, cyber-ostracism and physical abuse are as routine as turning in homework. That’s particularly true for students who are—or simply perceived to be—gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender (LGBT).

"Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me." I was sitting outside on the playground bench wiping the tears of a child when this proverb came to mind. It isn’t true, of course. Nancy was a second-grader going through an evaluation process to help us understand why she couldn't read. Kayla was one of her classmates. As they were climbing the ladder of the slide, Kayla yelled out, "Nancy is retarded!" Ouch. Words can break our hearts.

As part of our bedtime routine, I was excited to share a new book with my 4-year-old daughter. My Princess Boy by Cheryl Kilodavis would be our story for the evening. We began, as always, by reading the title and looking at the illustrations.

Growing up, no one told me that people shouldn’t be gay. My parents didn’t tell me I shouldn’t talk to kids whose parents were lesbian. My neighbors didn’t rant against the horrors of gay rights. Instead, all the people in my life encouraged me to live openly, to take people’s personalities and see the beauty in them, to smile at the adorable young couple clutching each other’s hands, no matter their gender. Love was love. I lived in a world blissfully ignorant about the cruelties of the “real world.”

“Dad, what is the Clue Clux Clan,” asked my 10-year-old son Bakary as we sat under a shade tree on Saturday in Montgomery, Ala. We were waiting to register for the Southern Poverty Law Center’s 40th anniversary celebration.“Well, it’s the Ku Klux Klan,” I told him. “Do you remember the old song that goes, “Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight?" Well, the KKK thinks only white people are precious and they try to hurt people who think differently.” “Oh, I’m glad it’s not the ‘Clue Clux Clan’ because they don’t have a clue,” he said.

The question above was posed to me in the comments section of a blog post I wrote recently. The post was entitled "Imani and the Cabbage Seeds." In it, I wondered about “isms”—racism, sexism and other things that either separate people or give one group power over another.

I broke a toe recently. Woke from a deep sleep, ambled around my apartment for just a few moments and then thump! I hit my foot on a piece of furniture. As I hobbled around in the days that followed, lost in the effort of just getting about, I thought “this is what it must feel like to be old.” And then—“this is what it feels like to have a disability.”