The psychology of the racial relationships between black students and white teachers is becoming incredibly interesting to me. Some of my students seem to get it- I can still care about them and they can trust me, even though I'm white and they are black.
Some, however... just don't totally follow.
I have one special student who is rather young emotionally, and intensely racially curious. She has asked me many many times what my race is, and each time I explain to her that I am white... and WHY I am white.
"Miss, is you white or black?"
"S~, I'm white. Remember, we talked about this last week?"
"Yeah, but like... you is nice."
"White people can be nice too. We are all just people on the inside, even if we have differences on the outside."
"Yeah, but..."
I talked to another teacher who has this student, and it seems that for this student, good teachers who are white progress slowly to being black as trust is developed. This relationship of trust and care must be reconciled with the racial "separateness" that she feels, and so every white teacher with whom she has a relationship becomes a light skinned black person.
Until yesterday, when I heard this...
"Miss, I like your hair. My hair is nappy."
"No way! I have ALWAYS wanted hair like yours!"
"Nah, Miss. You got that nice hair, that nice Chinese hair."
We've got some work to do.
HYSTERICS. That is so so so so funny. Someone told me the other day that they didn't like their last therapist because she was "a white lady" but when I cocked my head a bit they went, "....but we like you".
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