Teachers Like Me

White Women Who Want to Make a Difference

Hi Folks,

I’m excited to share an essay I wrote a while back, as a part of my querying package for the book that I’m now completely re-writing. It’s a shame to let a good story go to waste, and it’s perfectly on brand for NSFS. 

Trigger warnings: Even though Roxane Gay doesn’t believe in them, nevertheless I persist. In this essay, I talk about white teachers’ perceptions of the Dominican-American community, of which there is a large population in NYC. I’d like to make it clear that this essay is one that is in celebration of both Dominican-American culture and people, and that whatever the white characters say in this story, I do not agree with but is something that happened (which is why I wrote it). Obviously names are fictionalized, so don’t @ me. 

I’ll say one more thing about this: It is a damn shame that Cardi B’s song “ wet a$$ pu$$y” came out during the pandemic because of how it must have taunted teachers like the ones I write about below. The school in which this story takes place is located in a predominately Dominican-American neighborhood, and in fact, many of my former students at this school went to the same middle school as Cardi B, making her something of a local hero. 

Things to think about if you suffer from melanin deficiency as you read this story: what can we do to intervene, disrupt, and challenge harmful and derogatory stereotypes of people when we are in conversation with other whites?

Teachers like me: White Women Who Want to Make a Difference

“She thinks she’s Cardi B, it’s so obnoxious,” Karen rolls her eyes as she says this, looking directly at Becky for validation. We are sitting at a bar close to the public high school in north Harlem which I am slated to begin teaching the very next day. Karen and Becky, seasoned teachers by the standard of urban education with three years of teaching experience each, grabbed me at the end of the teacher team building exercise held in the green-tiled cafeteria underneath faintly flickering fluorescent light bulbs.

 “Come with us, we’ll get a drink and tell you everything you actually need to know,” Karen said. And so I went.

“I swear, if I have to see her stick her tongue out one more time!” Becky doesn’t finish, and before I can ask her what will happen if she does, in fact, see it again, she interjects, “It’s so inappropriate, I never would have gotten away with twerking in class and neither should she!” Becky flushes red as she says this, red patches breaking out in patches across her summer-tanned face. So, she’s the proper one of this duo. She’s going to be so tedious to work with, I think to myself.

“Oh my god, you have to tell her about what she did to her boyfriend,” Becky chimes in, a grin spreading across her face even as she rolls her eyes. I lean in closer. “You start Karen,” Becky finishes. They have told this story before.

“So, Jellany, sorry, heeelllaani” She exaggerates her pronunciation in a mock-Spanish accent before returning to her story, and I instinctively cringe, resolving not to be that kind of white teacher.  White teachers account for 67% of New York City’s teaching force for schools that are overwhelmingly BIPOC.  The school where we all worked was 97% with a heavy amount of representation of Dominican-Americans.

Karen looks over at me and mistakes my open mouth as a sign she should continue.

 “—I know, it took me forever to learn how to pronounce their names, they’re worse than Black names because they’re also in Spanish, but they’re not real names, they’re made up.”

“Dominicans are so ghetto,” Becky says with a dismissive eyeroll. Nevermind that over 90% of the school’s student population is Dominican-American. Clearly, Becky still doesn’t consider even that fact a good enough reason to learn more about Dominican culture. Or why many choose creative first names, instead of plain, boring white ones. 

Karen laughs before continuing, “Anyway, so Jellany was dating Jerome, but she slept with another guy. And when Jerome found out—so funny—he goes, ‘you slept with a whole other person?’ As if you could only sleep with part of another person! These kids. Anyway, so Jerome gets really upset about this, and punches her. She came into school with a black eye and everything.” 

Karen finishes by taking a dramatic sip of her white wine and looks over to Becky for her to finish the story. I am uncomfortable. I can’t quite place it, but there’s something about the tone these white teachers take when describing their students that strikes me as wrong. It seems unfair to mock teenagers. For starters.

“And of course, Jellany wants revenge,” Becky dutifully responds. “So she calls up the police, and tells them her boyfriend punched her. Of course, they can’t do anything and basically tell her it’s not their problem.” Becky’s voice fades into the background here. I think about the historical role of white women slut-shaming BIPOC women. I think of the very real problem of domestic abuse within the Dominican community in New York City. I hurt for her. What would have happened if I had called the police to tell them my boyfriend punched me? Would they have taken me more seriously?

A fork clatters onto the table from its precarious perch on the edge of my plate. I jump, and tune back in just in time to hear Karen say: “When she realizes the police don’t care that Jerome punched her—for cheating on him—she then tells the police that Jerome….”

My attention escapes me again, how do these two white teachers know this? Is this story even real? They tell it with such relish, I somehow doubt the authenticity of the story. If it was real, this was not a funny story. I think to myself: Did they just slut shame a domestic abuse victim? Who was a minor?

I wish I hadn’t, but by the time I realize my attention has drifted, I hear Karen finish, “…because she turned him in, now he’s in Riker’s!”

I don’t know how to respond to this. The conversation took a dark turn, where casual racism transformed, suddenly, into a violent mix of sexism and racism like some sort of intersectional-feminist horror show. I don’t know who Jellany is yet, but I feel for her. I imagine being a brown teenager calling the cops because my boyfriend had punched me, only to be laughed at—by my teachers, no less. Good for her, I think, that’ll teach him not to hit her. I’m already on her side, over that of my two white colleagues.

What I’m sure Karen and Becky don’t realize is that their snap judgements are a reflection not just of who they are, but also how they teach. Which is to say, how they interact with the world around them. But when the world around you is 97% BIPOC, and you are white and a position of authority, your preconceptions hold sway over your decision making. Especially when you are overwhelmed. Which is precisely what schools necessitate teachers be, all of the time. 

All of the things I should have said at the time:

In this story, Becky virtue signals by implying that Jellany is sexually promiscuous, as evidenced by her twerking during class time. This, of course, rests on another stereotype of Black women as overly sexual, as promiscuous temptresses who seduce white women’s white husbands into the carnal sins of the flesh. What I’m sure Becky doesn’t know about her feigned virtue signaling is the historical roots of slut-shaming women of color by white women. As Ruby Hamad notes in her book White Tears/Brown Scares: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color, that the white woman’s racial privilege is predicated on their acceptance of their role of virtue and goodness.” And that, further, in order to maintain this illusion, women of color are both “too racialized and too gendered to be taken seriously and treated with respect.” This is why, Hamad argues, women of color are often reduced to stereotypes as angry, scary, cold, and aggressive.

Returning to the issue at hand, by this equation, twerking = slut. And since, it has been decided, that Jellany is a slut, then she does not deserve our empathy. She is the one who incited violence against herself by engaging in alleged sexual activity with someone other than her named boyfriend. In other words, Jellany was asking for it. Therefore, it is egregious for Jellany to have been outraged in the first place, and when she took it as far as to call the police, who rightfully told her that her place as not worth of being treated with respect, Jellany fired back, this time using a different missile.

I believe Karen and Becky’s outrage at Jellany doing this was, in some ways, justified. Even they didn’t think that an 18 year old should be in Riker’s, and their judgment over Jellany’s actions rests on so many stereotypes jumbled together, that it takes time to parse them out. Sexism and racism intertwine so expertly, that to begin to trace the source of each is to necessarily end up caught up in the briar patch of semiotic analysis. I should have gone easier on them in my mind (and on myself). I should have tried to engage them, to explain, just how beautiful of a culture they were missing learning out on by not asking the students about their Dominican heritage, or even Black history.

Reparation Opportunity for the Melanin Deficient: Educate Yourself

I really recommend this essay collection by the journalist Ruby Hamad: White Tears/ Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color

If those of us who suffer from melanin deficiency want to do better, it starts (and some could say, stops) with our own damn minds. Which is where books and documentaries come in. Next week, I’ll have more of a list of movies, shows, and articles written by BIPOC people which helps those of us who may suffer from melanin deficiency overcome ourselves.