Beautiful Girls

…. the outcome of my daughter's speech on racism. As she gave her speech, she often needed to stop to explain words that she had used. On the one hand, this means that the kids were interested and paying attention. On the other, it shows that she was writing and speaking at a language level that exceeded the class's. The impact of her efforts was limited by that. The kids were interested, but didn't quite “get” her, I think. That's ok.   

The books on her bedside table include A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking, and The Ancestor's Tale by Richard Dawkins. Her language skills are unusually strong. Not that her speech was snooty and weighed down with big words, it wasn't. But I think that it would have taken several editings to make the speech more accessible, and better representative of ideas she was paraphrasing.  I didn't want to get in there and work it over for her, I wanted her to express herself in her spontaneous and sincere way.

I decided to follow up on the speech, here, to elaborate on something that came up in my conversation with the kids, and with the counsellor. The comments that initially ignited the huge blow-out between the kids brought into focus the subject of discrimination in general. I thought this was very cool. 

Please understand that this wasn't just one of those “politically correct” events where the teachers jumped in to offer canned platitudes about isms. The energy and need was coming from the kids (half of whom were in tears, and very interested in dialogue, when it all happened). There are children from many different ethnic backgrounds in the school, and a lot of them have come from countries suffering the effects of war and racism in a very concrete and bloody way. My daughter's best friend's family has travelled several countries before arriving at the safety of ours. She was understandably deeply affected.

My daughter is white, anglo, and as such might seem somewhat immune to daily prejudice against herself (visible minorities tend to get the worst of it). But this class event was about all the kids, not just visible minorities. I think almost everyone in the class had something to say about how he or she experienced discrimination in their own lives. My daughter receives daily teasing for the way she dresses (she dresses beautifully, but in her own way, not following the current styles). More troubling is the endless teasing about her intelligence. I don't mean to boast, but she is noticeably “different” in this regard, and in her depth of thought and feeling.

It may inspire you to think “oh big deal, poor baby is teased about being smart”.  But I have, since childhood, seen how hard kids can be on someone who stands out in this way. It's lonely and difficult, and a lot of times the relentless anti-intellectualism in schools wears a kid down and dispirits them.

What's my point…. hmm, not sure I had one! I just wanted to expand on the story, to show the directions that it went, and the ways in which discrimination eats away at all of us.

bows,
crow

I have to add that I don't consider my daughter's discrimination issues equivalent to those faced by the girls in this video.  I want, rather, to show that there's a connecting point there. We can all look at our own experiences and have a starting point for empathy—in this aspect of experience, as in any other.

But I must also say that some things, you can't **get** by looking at your own life. You have to listen, and listen well, to what others are telling you about their lives. It's important to see what connects our experiences, but it's as important to be capable of accepting that maybe you really don't get it.  There is a line, somewhere, where our experience-base runs out, and we have to trust the words and stories of others to take our hearts into places we've never been.

That little girl who pointed to the doll she'd labelled “bad”, when asked which one she was most like, took my heart someplace I didn't know. I hadn't “got” that, until now. And it touched both my daughters' hearts and taught them something I had no way of teaching them. 

We all have prejudices. If you think you don't, I'd wager you're kidding yourself. Pre-judging is, at a basic level, a survival tactic. It's one of the things that is there to help us, in a primitive sense. Allergic reactions in the body are the same way—they are the immune system trying to do its job, but getting confused or otherwise carried away. 

We need to go beyond despising those who express prejudice. I do think that shaming such attitudes does have some effect. But, let's take it one step deeper, and understand it….. Compassoin and information are the lights to illuminate the darkness of ignorance-based discrimination. Ignorance and fear are the enemies. And the people who live from that place probably can't find their way out without help.

I am realizing that I can't find the end to what has become an essay. I have much to say. But I will leave it there, for now : )

bows,
crow