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When you’re the only person of color in your class, school can become a struggle between two worlds.

You’re forgiven if you missed it. Late last month, Congress passed and President Obama signed a bill that included text that “apologizes … to all Native Peoples for the many instances of violence, maltreatment, and neglect inflicted on Native Peoples by citizens of the United States.” Not only was news of the measure knocked from front pages by the health care debate and Tiger Woods, it was well-camouflaged within the 2010 defense appropriations bill.

red·skin \ˈred-ˌskin\(noun) usually offensive : American IndianNote the “usually offensive” — a warning from one of the more neutral arbitrators of American English, Merriam-Webster. “Redskin” is a pejorative term, and should be used with caution, if at all.

A couple of nights ago, I took my daughter to Chuck-E-Cheese, a tradition of ours when her other mother is out of town. We play skee-ball to win long rows of tickets that we later exchange for plastic toys and stickers. We play — it’s our way of lessening how much we miss the Mom who’s not with us. This particular evening something besides the blinking lights of games caught my eye, though.

During the fourth week of school, the form came home, stuffed into my daughter’s backpack: Your student scored a XX on his/her DIBELS literacy test, administered this Fall/Summer. Based on this score, your child will be placed in Open Court Level XYZ [with] TEACHER A...

“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” These few words, spoken casually by Sonia Sotomayor at the annual Mario G. Olmos Law and Cultural Diversity Lecture at UC-Berkeley in 2001, came back to haunt President Barack Obama’s nominee for the United States Supreme Court during the spring and summer of 2009. Hard to believe that this brief statement could cause such anguish, particularly among the conservative white senators who form part of the Senate Judiciary Committee, yet they led to days of arrogant grilling by the Senators and weeks of newspaper articles and commentary by television pundits speculating on what Sotomayor meant, whether it would hurt her confirmation, and what it would signal for the new court.

Zero tolerance policies were supposed to end school violence. Instead, they’re pushing students out of school and into the justice system — and children of color are paying the highest price.

Making a space where teachers can talk about difference.