Resentment; An Unintended Consequence of Intentional Diversity

It’s the mystery of Inequity…
Said it’s the misery of Inequity…
Said it’s the history of Inequity…
When it all…
All falls down…
Telling you all…
It all falls down

– Mystery of Inequity, Lauryn Hill

“Mr! It’s not my fault that kid’s parents can’t afford to buy him nice clothes and sneakers.”

This quote is taken from a student of mine who felt threatened by my questions on materialism. It struck me as odd because I grew up on the other side of this coin and this was the first time I saw how offended a person, even a child, could be when questioned about their privilege. The school I teach at now is similar to the ones I attended growing up in that we have a diverse population both in terms of class and race. I recently asked an education scholar about how we could promote diversity in public schools and he summed up his answer in three words: high performing schools. One fear tied to this that goes widely ignored is how this “diversity” can lead to schools that no longer serve the populations they were created to serve. This has happened at my high school Alma Matter, Coral Reef Senior High, where the student population has shifted so that the number of Black students is disproportionately low considering that the school is located in a historically Black working class neighborhood. While academic development and performance is paramount, it seems that as educators and policy makers we often seem to ignore social development. As both a student and a teacher in diverse schools I find that we were and continue to be ill prepared to discuss these issues among ourselves or with our students.

As a student, I struggled for years to confront and diffuse the resentment I held against myself, my family, my peers, and society. I spent years walking around with a large chip on my shoulder (really it was more like the Tostitos Party Pack), because of what I perceived as a bad hand of cards. It is difficult for a child to understand why kids have things that you don’t. Why they live in houses with their own room while you sleep on the floor in the same room as your mom. Why they go shopping every month while you wait for your parents income tax check like it’s a ghetto Christmas.Why they had, what I conceived at the time to be, a better life even though I felt that I was a better person. Although these things are all superficial and materialistic, these are real thoughts that real kids in diverse populations are bound to have everyday. When kids are surrounded by sameness they do not conceptualize differences in the same way that kids in diverse environments do. They do not develop inferiority complexes as they are forced to see the spectrum of what exists and what they don’t have. I’ve been to and taught at schools that have a homogenous environment and what I found was that these kids were sheltered from many notions of “difference.” In these places, most kids dressed the same, lived in similar situations, and therefore perceived their reality as “normal.” The issues in these environments are even more problematic as these children develop one dimensional perceptions of a world that is much greater and more complex than they are led to believe. When placed in an environment that has a diverse population, we have the opportunity to either address these issues properly (which rarely happens) or create a situation where resentment, like mine, is both fermented and typically dismissed.

As a teenager I came to the realization that many of my feelings were unfounded and immature. In an attempt to begin to address them I reached out to school counselors and to my own family. Overwhelmingly we face questions about privilege and lack thereof in the same ways; we tell kids who’ve got it that they deserve it because their parents worked hard for them to enjoy it and we tell kids who lack it that if they work hard enough they may one day experience it. The problem with these responses is what they imply. The first suggests that kids won some kind of privilege/parent lottery and that those children who don’t enjoy it have “bad” parents. It also fails to help kids develop any sense of empathy for those less fortunate. The response to low income kids is even more problematic in that it makes them seem like victims of their parents preconceived mistakes and only gives them a chance at success rather than a promise of it. This line of thinking obscures the complexities that low income parents and families must face in their day to day lives and equates being low income with not having worked hard enough. The general response to the aforementioned frustrations are that getting an education will eventually serve as the ultimate equalizer for kids like my students and I. This is easy to say but much more difficult to live. Too often we tell the poor to be hopeful and the rich to be grateful. My frustrations with these is that they are band aids against critically engaging these issues in any meaningful way and trying to discern how we systemically contribute to and inherit both privilege and oppression.

With the above being the typical institutional/societal responses to differences in class, the typical family response is equally troubling. Overwhelmingly, engaging these topics with my family was both daunting and frustrating. From my parents’ perspective I was very much a “desagradecido” (ungrateful) in that my situation could be classified as consisting mostly of relative disadvantage while their upbringing entailed facets of true third world abject poverty. Instead of tackling my frustrations head on, my mother tried to use religion, tough talk, and hope as distractors for my real issues. Frankly, I don’t blame my parents or family for their inability to discuss these things meaningfully as it is difficult enough to live a situation, much more so to try to rationalize it to a kid stuck between worlds.

Conservatives frequently argue that one of the shortcomings of putting high performing minority students in affluent primary schools and colleges is that the culture shock is too great for  them to handle. In many ways I agree; but I don’t think that the shock can’t and shouldn’t be overcome. Instead of looking to avoid these troubles like critics of affirmative action do, we should be looking for ways to develop and nourish discussions on these issues so that we can work through them as a society.  In fact, I believe that it was my maturity and growth in these settings over time that allowed me to come to terms with who I was and where I started. While it was not easy, the gamut of my experiences and exposures contributed greatly towards my development as both a person and a teacher. Eventually, after much reflection and dialogue, I came to view my hardships as badges of honor and symbols of character rather than impediments to my success.

As my students get older I hope that they are able to go through a similar growth process as my own. I am frustrated by the fact that I must say “hope” rather than “know.” Barring a few people who pushed my thinking and challenged my notions of equality and resentment in critical ways, most people I encountered shy’d from having discussions about inequity. After all, since school is supposed to be “the ultimate equalizer,” why do we need to talk about class and poverty? Until we can engage kids on these issues at the emotional and psychological level as parents, teachers, administrators, and friends we will continue to promote a system that intrinsically perpetuates deep feelings of inferiority in its poor kids and notions of superiority in its affluent ones.