A TEACHER OF COLOR'S MOST MEMORABLE CLASSROOM EXPERIENCE
(excerpted from her book on race and education due out very soon)
By: Pamela Lewis
I am a TOC (teacher of color) who has recently finished the final draft of a book that relates directly to our work. Here is a sample passage about my most memorable teaching experience. I'd love to know what you guys think:
Khloe was striking. Her skin was rich, the absolute last shade of brown on the color palette, and her eyes, the shape of almonds. She was absolutely stunning; however she hated her skin, and did her damnedest to hide her body from sight. Those ankle-length bubble coats that women wore were popular around this time, and Khloe wore hers all day long, using it more as a security blanket than for warmth. She wore the hood and often zippered the jacket up to her chin, hoping to become invisible. As disturbing as this image may be, it was the other ways in which she attempted to hide that were the most devastating to watch. Khloe created an armor of hate; she spewed obscenities that were unfathomable for a girl her age. At age eleven, she fought like a grown man. She intimidated every person she encountered, bullied her peers and her teachers, and had taken on a persona that pretty much said, “Fuck with me. Go head. I dare you.” She had even gone to the extent of creating self-inflicted insult figuring that if she had already done the job, there’d be no ammunition left for anyone else.
“I’m fat, black and ugly. I wish I could scrub my skin light,” she’d say almost laughing. I never found it funny.
“Your skin is beautiful, Khloe,” I constantly reminded her.
“You have to say that,” she scoffed. “You’re my teacher.”
“That’s easy for you to say. Ninety-nine problems but your skin ain’t one,” her nod to a Jay-Z song off his Black Album. She was right. I couldn’t relate. My life had been filled with complexion compliments and tress tributes. My “prettiness” was always in relation to hair and skin; it had little to do with my features. Skin and hair was all that mattered to my black community and I was considered lucky by all of my friends who coveted my color and my curls.
Being fortunate enough grow up without such a devastating blow to my self- esteem allowed me to see beauty without a distorted sense of reality. Khloe, like so many little black girls, suffered from a warped perception of beauty similar to what girls who struggled with bulimia and anorexia experienced. Just as they could not look in the mirror without seeing themselves as fat, no matter how thin they actually were, Khloe and millions of little girls in America and other countries in the world that were colonized and broken by white supremacy would be doomed to see ugly staring back at them in the mirror, despite how beautiful they may truly were.
And so Khloe couldn’t fathom my truth. I truly believed her complexion was one of the prettiest I had
Badass Teachers Association:
“I’m fat, black and ugly. I wish I could scrub my skin light,” she’d say almost laughing. I never found it funny.
“Your skin is beautiful, Khloe,” I constantly reminded her.
“You have to say that,” she scoffed. “You’re my teacher.”
“That’s easy for you to say. Ninety-nine problems but your skin ain’t one,” her nod to a Jay-Z song off his Black Album. She was right. I couldn’t relate. My life had been filled with complexion compliments and tress tributes. My “prettiness” was always in relation to hair and skin; it had little to do with my features. Skin and hair was all that mattered to my black community and I was considered lucky by all of my friends who coveted my color and my curls.
Being fortunate enough grow up without such a devastating blow to my self- esteem allowed me to see beauty without a distorted sense of reality. Khloe, like so many little black girls, suffered from a warped perception of beauty similar to what girls who struggled with bulimia and anorexia experienced. Just as they could not look in the mirror without seeing themselves as fat, no matter how thin they actually were, Khloe and millions of little girls in America and other countries in the world that were colonized and broken by white supremacy would be doomed to see ugly staring back at them in the mirror, despite how beautiful they may truly were.
And so Khloe couldn’t fathom my truth. I truly believed her complexion was one of the prettiest I had