White Middle Class

I have spent the last two Friday nights with my daughters, watching high school football at the school down the road from our house.  My daughters watch the game a little, watch the cheerleaders a little more, and spend the rest of the time dancing to the band.  It’s a mostly black high school.  The band has soul.  My daughters recognize good music.  I spend my time watching the game a little, watching the crowd alot, and clapping with my daughters as they dance to the music played by the band with soul. 

Tonight’s game was a good one, and school that is just down the road from our house lost by one point.  There were some controversial calls that seemed to go in the other teams favor that created a great deal of visible frustration for the players, who are mostly black, at this mostly black high school. 

The people and the culture are different from my native culture.  As I sit in the middle of it with my daughters, I begin to ask myself…what is it like to be black.  What does it feel like when the aging white referee makes a call that is perceived to be grossely incorrect, and you are the young black man being penalized?  Whether the call is correct or not, how do you overcome what you perceive? How can you begin to even perceive something different? 

One moment in a football game made a lasting impact on me this evening.  Whether or not the perception is reality anymore, seemed so irrelevant.  The perception still exists, which creates a reality. 

Why follow the rules of the system when the system is not designed for me to succeed?  What is it like to be black?  How do the black students in my class feel about me, their white middle class teacher, disciplining them for not bringing their math work to class?  Do they feel I care about them and want to see them be the best they can, or do the feel something else, and are they justified in feeling that way?

My family moved to the urban area because I felt like I, as a white middle class man, had something to offer the poor mostly black urban neighborhood.  I’ve got love, which I can offer to anyone.  But maybe I should spend a little more time with the culture, before I decide I know what it needs.  Maybe the culture is showing me what I need. 

Choose to believe something different.