97.

Knowing Better: Living in a Post-Thoughtful Community

As teachers we count ourselves lucky to have students who come from families that intentionally tackle issues of inequality and injustice in their households. These students bring perspectives that infuse difficult conversations about topics like race or sexuality with a variety of lived experience and life lessons – ones that speak to respecting all humans in spite of our differences. These students often grow up being encouraged to not only tolerate, but to celebrate differences. Usually this attitude of acceptance is worthy of celebrating.

My use of the word “usually” demands a bit unpacking. So allow me to explain.

I had a classroom experience with the aforementioned tolerant youngsters that left me thinking that this attitude of learnedness in the ways of acceptance may not always contribute to the depth with which students explore these issues. That it may be possible that these progressive leanings can make us less willing to unabashedly tackle conversations about uncomfortable topics or less motivated to continue getting to know ourselves.

The lesson that illuminated this predicament was on the relationship between race, language, and power in preparation to teach the controversial Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Opening with a discussion of the common usage of the word “nigger” in the text, I hoped to work through the discomfort in order to create a safe space for my students to honestly reflect on their own experiences and craft a common language to critically and comfortably engage with Twain’s masterful work.

Hours went into carefully crafting this lesson that would allow us a slow and steady entrance into a deeply analytical discussion of the power of language and the catalog of hate that this particular word carries with it, of our own hidden biases, and shared histories.

Following our reading of Gloria Naylor’s reflective essay, “The Meaning of a Word,” in which she examines her first experience actually feeling the hate attached to the word “nigger,” a student of mine said, “Ms. Cook, I get it, but its safe to say that we all live in a community where language like that is frowned upon. We don’t use it because we know better.” Looking around I saw 26 heads nodding in agreement. Twenty-six white heads bobbing up and down, all expressing the sentiment that they knew better.

I began wondering if “Knowing better,” in this context resembled another feature of privilege. Did they know better or simply not know at all? Is it our privilege that allows us to claim post-racial, lessons learned, no-need-for-further-exploration mentality from here on out? If this is true, then is it not our responsibility to recognize that privilege? To teach to that privilege? I realized that to accept the idea that students are beyond conversations of tolerance and historical hatred was not an option. While tolerance should be praised, we must all continue to apply a particular type of intentionality and reflection to our progressive views.

I decided to gently push those students who “knew better” because to think, ‘we’re past that’ would only allow them to comfortably defend their personal biases. They would remain untouched; unexamined. And as we advance into the future, we need to remember what knowledge we’ve inherited from the wisest and justest* of all Athenian philosophers, and continue to examine our lives to ensure they are worth living.

*Plato is said to have referred to his teacher Socrates as “the wisest and justest, and best of all men whom I have ever known.”