Sin saber...

About two minutes ago I was brushing my teeth trying to figure out how I want to teach my ASH kids about oppression and prejudice. I guess I got distracted by the minty flavor because my mind wandered around to lunch today. It settled on a particular scene in which I was trying to mingle a bit with the students as they ate. At one point I sat down with two well-groomed white boys from the magnet school program and asked them the typical generic questions about their day and what they were eating for lunch, etc. They were both very polite and seemed reasonably pleased that I was sitting with them. After a few minutes, however, I decided that these two boys didn't need anything from me, so I said goodbye and wandered around a bit until I came across a cluster of overweight black and latina girls sitting off to themselves in the corner of the lunch room. "Aha!" My subconscious piped up. "These are the students that need me." So I sat down to chat.

I think what's bothering me most about this situation is that I didn't think twice about it until tonight. Here I am, Maggie the anthropologist. I think I know all about cultural relativism, oppression, hegemony and my own personal biases. And yet it took me three seconds to decide that the white, "well-mannered" magnet school boys lead completely privileged lives, while the overweight girls of color must be disadvantaged and have self-esteem issues. What's scary to me is that I arrived at all these assumptions completely subconsciously. I didn't even realize I was thinking them until ten minutes ago.

Alas, the journey has no ending...

I think this experience also raises questions about my definitions of "disadvantaged." Although I've heard otherwise a million times, I still operate on the "obvious" definitions...like poverty, unstable family life, limited English, etc. I still subconsciously see black and white as indicators of disadvantage/advantage. Perhaps now more than ever in my life, these biases I hold matter. All these assumptions and prejudices that I can't fully shake could be hindering my potential to reach the students that may need me.

So what to do? Well, I'll do better tomorrow!