Sunday, November 4, 2007
Service Learning November 2
Friday during my service learning there was an akward moment that really hit me hard. The teacher was reading a story about the first Thanksgiving and one of the little African American boys raised his hand and asked where all the black people were at. The teacher looked at me first and I had a blank stare on my face. I was amazed how this little boy could see that and understand that was unsual. The teacher told him that they were still in Africa and would come over on a later ship. What she left out was the horrid story of how they did end up coming here. It was a sad moment because it made me realize that never have I ever wondered where my race was in a children's book. The Color of Fear came to my mind and this was a wake up call and a kinda pinch on the arm to show me that I truly have benefited from the "White Privilege". After this happend I thought to myself, what are some of the things I can do to make sure that I incorporate stories that have non-whites as the lead characters and also show the students in my classroom a story on their heritage. This truly was a wake up call and a kick in the behind that I feel I needed to learn how to deal with this issue that is not going to go anywhere soon.
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I had a similar experience at my service learning this week. We played Thanksgiving bingo and one of the squares was FDR (he changed the date of Thanksgiving or something like that). The teacher asked one of the students if she knew anything about him and the student said something like, "If he was a president, he must have been white." I've noticed that all the presidents have been white males, but it struck me that this student recognized this at such a young age. It also reminded me of one of the manifestations of white privilege: that whites can trust that they will see heroes of their own race in history books.
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