I Messed Up

I truly believe that if we are ever going to start to heal the racial problems we have in this country, white people need to be honest and own their racism. I have tried to do that on a number of occasions in this space. Today, I have yet another racial lesson to confess and learn from.

I work as a substitute teacher in a suburb outside of Minneapolis, MN. Almost every day, my assignment is different. Some days I am teaching math, others history. Sometimes I am even lucky enough to cover for the orchestra teacher and get to listen to budding musicians hone their craft. Today, I was covering a math class filled with freshmen. I’ve mentioned before how unruly this crop of freshmen can be. This class was no different.

A group of boys wanted to play mini-basketball in class. You can imagine the disaster that would come from that, especially in a room with fire sprinklers. I let them know I didn’t think it was a good idea. Earlier in the class period, I had to speak to this same group of boys because they were tilting their table back and forth, risking the lives of the Chromebooks that sat upon them and the fingers of the students who sat there. There’s no way I would ever let them play basketball in class. But they persisted and asked again. This is where I made my insensitive mistake. Here’s what I said to them:

“You guys can’t even sit at a table without monkeying around. Why would I let you play basketball?”

The instant the sentence came from my mouth I realized what I had done. Out of the five students sitting at the table, one of them was Black. I’d just related a student of color to a monkey. Shit shit shit. My mind raced. I could feel my face glowing bright red. I was embarrassed and ashamed of my thoughtlessness. There was a slight buzz in the room between some students about what I had said. Part of me wanted to forget it, move on, and not acknowledge what I had done. It was a mistake. I knew that. It was an expression I would have used regardless of who was sitting at that table. Thinking back on it, I don’t believe the Black student even entered my mind when I was denying them access to the mini-ball. And yet…

I could have said anything in that moment. I could have said “fooling around” or “goofing off”. But I didn’t. I said “monkeying”. Why did I say that? Somewhere in my mind did I notice the student of color and say it? Am I so ingrained with racism that things like this can pass through my lips without me even noticing it? It is a lot to contemplate and I will.

A female student of color asked to leave the room shortly after my remark. I don’t know if it was because of what I’d said or if she was leaving for something else. I haven’t had a chance to speak with her yet. I was able to speak with the boy who may have thought the comment was directed at him. I apologized to him in private in the hallway. Let me tell you, that was both the easiest thing and the hardest thing I could have done. Easy because all I had to do was acknowledge how my thoughtless words might have impacted another person. Hard because I had to resist the usual white apology tropes: overexplaining, proclaiming a lack of racism, listing off friends, defensiveness. I wanted so badly for this kid to understand that I am not racist.

But that wouldn’t be the truth, now would it?

I could have said anything else. But I didn’t. Weaseling out of responsibility for my words wouldn’t solve anything. I would be just another white person who says something shitty and then puts the onus on the people offended to own it. I didn’t want to do that. I couldn’t. This was my mistake and no matter how uncomfortable confronting this made me feel, I had to do it. If we are ever going to make progress with our fellow citizens of color, white people need to stop shifting the blame. Apologies aren’t about what you feel. They’re about what you’ve done to the person you’re apologizing to.

I hope that I get to speak honestly with the student who left the room and apologize to her. I doubly hope that she didn’t leave because of me (though I doubt that to be true). This is a lesson for all white people to learn from. When you say something crappy and racist, no matter your intent, just own it. Yeah, it’s hard and feels awful. That’s the point. Think about how shitty the person who you slandered feels? You should feel at least as bad. Don’t be defensive. Don’t argue. Don’t trot out your list of excuses.

It’s OK to mess up. We’re all humans swimming in the sea of white supremacy. Shit happens. But if you find yourself doing or saying something racist, the healthiest thing to do is to learn from it, own it, and apologize.