Sustained Dialogue
Sustained
dialogue would have been a welcomed asset during my early high school
experience. You see, I was ridiculed and
discriminated against by those of my own ethnicity, black Americans, as well as
white Americans. (As with the young man
in the *Not Just Talk: SDCN’s
Informational Video (2009) I also hold contempt for the term African
American for several of the same reasons he expressed, and consider ‘black
American’ more appropriate). I attended
the oldest public high school in Raleigh,
nestled in a predominantly affluent white community. Jesse Helms grandchildren, Brian McKnight’s
son, and Jim Valvano’s daughter were among my schoolmates and alumni (just to
give you an idea of how exclusive this public school was and still is). At the time, circa 1991, our school was
racially divided. This stemmed from a
political cartoon illustrated in the student newspaper which depicted a black
student hanging by a noose. Needless to
say this was quite disturbing to the student body and the greater community at
large. I remember witnessing more fights
and acts of violence than I ever had within a semester before or since. As a five foot seven, one hundred and five
pound freshman, I was already apprehensive.
I did not need a ‘race war’ to add fuel to the fire. In addition, I was enrolled in various
advanced and college prep courses, and involved in various extra-curricular activities
which were primarily made up of white students.
Hence, I was ridiculed and criticized by other black Americans. In addition, considering the nature of the
school environment, several of my white friends and classmates were constantly
asking, “Well, what do you think about the newspaper? It’s just a
cartoon!” I’m fourteen, and all I did
all day was try to answer for and on the behalf of ALL ‘my people,’ then leave
class and get ridiculed by ‘my people.’
I hated my freshman year.
If
sustained dialogue had existed then, it would have been very beneficial. It would have offered students a forum to
freely and non-judgmentally address their feelings, beliefs, and concerns. At the time our county had initiated a peer
mediation campaign which allowed students in the midst of conflict to meet with
a trained student mediator in effort to extinguish disputes. However, to have a group of random students
from different ethnicities, who may not have necessarily had interaction with
one another, to come together repeatedly over a given amount of time, and
discuss culture, race, and ethnicity issues would have been priceless. This would have planted seeds within the student
body that would dispense their understanding, knowledge, and shared experience
with their friends and classmates. The
hostile environment which we were susceptible to would have diminished in a
more expeditious and favorable manner.
As
it turned out, several minority students, inclusive of self, decided to apply
to the student newspaper the following year.
Once accepted, the newspaper staff consisted of thirty-five to forty
percent minorities. Also, the faculty
advisor from the previous year resigned, several of those who had perpetuated
the racist cartoon and bigotry graduated, and the school implemented more
security and upheld a zero tolerance policy for racial slurs, symbols, and
blatant discrimination.
