colourful.feet

Ren from Deaf West’s Spring Awakening going IN.

Kayla Renee Parker shared her story of how she managed to expose her racist teacher who appeared to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

“She wears a safety pin so everyone knows she’s an ally for minorities. Her cover photo has a Black power fist. She regularly discusses her love for the Obamas, the Black Lives Matter Movement, and her admonishment for this current administration.”

However, it wasn’t enough to hide her racism. 

It all started with a simple question from a test. The question stated, 

“Historical research on African-American families during slavery shows that: A) Family ties weren’t important in African cultures where the slaves ancestors originated; consequently, family bonds were never strong among slaves. B) Two-parent families were extremely rare during the slave period. C) Black family bonds were destroyed by the abuses of slave owners, who regularly sold off family members to other slave owners. D) Most slave families were headed by two parents.

So, obviously, Kayla chose C. And it was incorrect. According to the teacher, the right answer was D.

The argument started when Kayla wrote her an email and respectfully provided the professor the evidence, even directly from their textbook. “However, my Professor continued to argue that family bonds were not destroyed and that 2/3 of slave families were headed by two parents.” The teacher cited Herbert Gutman, sociologist, who died in 1985 and surely took part in the whitewashing of Black history.

When they met to discuss the subject in person the professor gave Kayla books to read adding such statements as, “This book would be good for you to read. I believe it’s $6 so I could buy it for you if you’d like.” The stated that she spent her whole life fighting for minorities and something like “I’ve got Black friends.” 

When the girl was proving her opinion, she heard more comments as, “You’re talking to someone who has spent their entire life fighting for people of diversity and marched with my Black brothers and sisters.”

As the result, the teacher asked Kayla to lecture the class on the topic and that was her fatal mistake.

Kayla took all her courage and made a presentation on the topic she was passionate about. She defended Black people and Black history. Here’s her presentation.

That was the point where the story should end, but NO.

The professor obviously forgot about privacy settings on Facebook and posted offensive comments about Kayla.

The professor’s last words to Kayla were:

This time The University of Tennessee stood up for the student. In July the teacher officially retiring from the university.

This is fucking insane.

The last paragraph of kaya’s story is everything:

To my Professor, I forgive you for robbing me of my focus last semester. I forgive you for calling my Father, a graduate of Yale Medical School, “educationally challenged.” I even forgive you for threatening me. However, I do not forgive you for being willfully ignorant to the subjects you teach students. I also do not forgive you for claiming to be an ally. An ally is so much more than wearing a safety pin. It also requires that you listen to the needs of Black people and respect the issues that we raise. When a Black student raises a concern over the way you are portraying her history, referring to all you’ve done for Black people doesn’t change the fact that you’re portraying slavery as some kind of slavery lite. As an educator and as an ally, you are not expected to know everything but this does not abdicate you from the responsibility of always continuing to learn- even from your students. Additionally, if you wanted to actually help Black men and women, you’d value our words. Unfortunately, your actions simply mirror how America values Black people in today’s society.

This Black girl is a hero who overcame her fear and faced her teacher defending Black people and Black history. 

I remember one time a lady came through with a bunch of things obviously for a baby (essentials like diapers, food, etc.) I gave her her total and her face just fell, and she quietly said, “It can’t be that much, can it?” My heart just broke for this poor lady when I told her unfortunately it is, and she just sort of looked at the stuff with all her anxiety showing. 

The lady behind her kind of starts craning her head to see what was holding up the line, and I start watching her, fully prepared to speak up if she started getting snippy. But she tapped the lady on the shoulder and said, “Excuse me for asking, but do you not have enough to buy this for your child?” No judgement, no snippy tone, just a soft spoken question.

The lady looked at her with her eyes tearing up and just shook her head, obviously embarrassed but trying not to show it, and without another word the second lady turns to me and says, “It’ll be debit, please.” And proceeds to pay for the first lady’s things. (Keep in mind the total was well over a hundred; this was no small amount.)

The first lady stared at her open-mouthed for a minute before saying, “God bless you, God bless you,” over and over to this other lady, who was acting like it was no big deal and even helped the lady pack up her cart while I rang through her things. After the first lady left I said to her, “I’ve worked retail for two years and that was the nicest thing I’ve ever seen, ma'am.”

The lady just shrugged and said, “I’ve been lucky enough to be well off in my life. Not everyone is. Why shouldn’t I help them?”

Everyone is the same when the witches catch you.

Lupita Nyong’o Met Gala 2017 (inspired) | Makeup Tutorial (cc’d)

I’ve been thinking a lot about the meeting between Trump and Obama at the White House, and here’s the thing.

Obama used to be a law professor. This is key.

Law school is so, so different from college. 

In college, everyone expects there to be a “syllabus day,” kind of a grace period where they can show up and get the lay of the land, figure out the bare minimum that they can get away with, the TA gives everyone their office hours, there’s an introductory lecture, and everybody leaves a few minutes early to go take a nap or something. You do the bullshit assignments, you say something in class now and then to get your participation check mark, and figure out how badly you can do on the final and still pass. 

But see, in law school, all the methodologies you’ve spent the last 17 years operating under go out the window. Day one of law school is you being thrown into the deep end of the pool—you’ve had a homework assignment for two weeks now, and it’s to read the first 200 pages of your casebook. And now it’s you and the teacher (who is usually as smug as Alex Trebek) gauging and assessing what you managed to absorb while you skimmed through all those pages of reading so you could hurry up and get to the other 150 pages of reading for your next period class, in front of 50 people who are all smarter than you. And if you fuck up, or you didn’t do the reading, you are at the mercies of not just the professor, but the silent satisfied judgment of your peers. 

Law school is hard, and it will make you feel stupid and tongue-tied and like you don’t know anything and can’t form an argument—because you don’t, and you can’t. Everybody there has had a 4.0 since birth. Everybody there was the smartest kid in their class, and you’re all rabidly competing for a sliver of a chance at something down the road. It’s petty, and savage, fiercely entrenched in a culture of formalities and ceremony, and exactly like Washington DC. 

Yesterday when I was driving home, the NPR reporter talking about the Oval Office meeting mentioned that Trump had thought it was going to be a “getting to know you” type meeting, but that he was surprised when Obama stretched their talk out to 90 minutes before sending him along to the Capitol building where he met with congressional leaders for more lengthy meetings and stuff he didn’t want to do.

And he hasn’t even gotten to the actual job yet. 

So think about that as we go into this. 

Trump walked into the Oval Office like a two-pump-chump freshman thinking it was syllabus day, and what he got was the first day of law school, and he hadn’t done the reading like everyone else had, and Professor Obama decided to put him in the hot seat. 

This was Obama’s chance for the most perfect revenge that would never be picked up on as revenge at all. He was gracious, polite—everything he needed to be for a peaceful transition and a good review from the press. And that would continue when the doors were closed, because that’s the key. Not a Come to Jesus meeting, oh no. If Obama were smart—and he is very smart—he would have treated Trump like an equal, and brought the discussion to a level that assumes far more of Trump than anyone has so far. Assumes that he’s an adult who’s been paying attention. Statistics, esoteric minutiae about the executive branch procedure, economic growth numbers, labor figures, domestic policies, countries Trump has never even heard of, shit that would never in a million years have been in Trump’s campaign soundbites or digestible summaries. 

No way to escape. No aides to remember any of it for him. Just the two of them. 

Because that’s what would strike a precise chill into Trump. The thundering realization that he’s woefully unprepared for the hard, boring, thankless reality of this, and Obama’s version of a smooth transition won’t and shouldn’t include remedial civics. 

That’s what I saw when they shook hands and Trump stared at the floor instead of looking back into Obama’s face. He’s just figured out how little he knows about any of this. 

And then there’s the fact - not the possibility, the fact - that the President is never, ever alone.  Ever.  He’s followed by the Secret Service, political and military aides, and the White House photographer.  His office is visible from the South Lawn, and his day is scheduled down to the second.  The only time he will ever be alone is in the toilet, and there’ll be someone waiting outside that if he isn’t in the official Residence.

Let’s not forget the Resident, either.  Trump can make some changes - bring in his own furniture, for instance - but the White House is a museum and he will not be allowed to make any major structural or decorative changes like slathering gold leaf on the crown moldings or redoing the Family Kitchen.  Ditto the Oval Office - he can commission his own rug and use a different desk and have the walls repainted, but he won’t be allowed to turn it into a Louis Quatorze fantasy or replace all the artwork with portraits of himself.

As for his official duties…he’ll  have to pardon a turkey, deliver the State of the Union address, and speak to the American people every week in a radio address that he won’t be able to improvise.  He’ll have to host State Dinners and Kennedy Center honors, bestow medals to soldiers, and chair cabinet meetings and meetings with the Joint Chiefs.  He’ll have to lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknows on Veterans’ Day, send out Christmas and Hannukah cards, and attend summit meetings where he’ll be expected to participate with more than “you’re a bad leader, you’re fired.”

And all of this is BEFORE he has to deal with the Congress, the press, the Supreme Court, and the people.

His life as he’s lived it for seventy years is done.  Period.  And until Obama and Ryan and McConnell talked to him, he truly had no idea of what he’s getting into.

Park, a Korean-American Democrat, won his race against Republican incumbent Valerie Clark.

“The election of an openly gay man to the Georgia General Assembly represents just one more step on the road to full equality for LGBT people in Georgia. Sam Park will join a growing number of elected officials who will fight for the rights of LGBT people as we push for full state-wide nondiscrimination laws in the coming legislative session.” ~  Executive Director of Georgia Equality Jeff Graham