Can diversity occur in school functions run by African Americans?

Yesterday I mentioned the Girls’ Night Out event at my school. It was a good turnout and the kids got out of it some new perspectives and some of them some new friends. The only thing disturbing about the event was the make up of the students.

There were about 70+ girls there, but only about 10 of them were non-African American.

I can only speculate the reasons for that.

The main woman who thought up the idea and the woman who students were to see to turn in their permission slips is an African American woman. The students who were really excited about attending were African American. About 5 of the 12 sponsors were African American.

But that should not deter white and other ethnic students from attending.

Last year the turn out was predominantly African American as well, so we specifically got some non-white girls to help with the planning and to try to spread the word to the other students that it was open for everyone.

I know that people talk about a post-racial society. That sounds great – let’s just all be a part of the human race. But honestly, the social construct of race is something that is not going to go away. Especially when we have people still doing blackface (and not understanding why it is wrong), still talking about the need to stop “race mixing” (saying they are looking out for the children), still not providing enough economic support to schools that are predominantly made up of minority students (don't really understand the reason for this other than to keep these people perpetually in a state of inequality).

Can’t we all just get along?

I hope that as the message of how fun and meaningful the GNO spreads to more girls that we will have more of a complete mix of students as we have our follow up activities throughout the rest of the school year.

I hope that these students and their lack of desire to fully integrate is not going to be representative of what the future of our nation holds.

Things aren't as bad as they may seem

Friday I spent 14 hours at the school I where I teach. On purpose. There was the regular school day and then the crisis counselor at school organized a Girl’s Night Out. This is the second year we have had the event.

Last year we went from 5 until midnight with about 60 girls on a Friday and – I am not going to lie – I basically wanted to either kill myself or find a bed to go to sleep in by about 10:45 that time around.

The whole purpose of the event is to help the ladies understand that they can get along with other females and that they all should treat each other with respect. We focused on the term ‘sisterhood’ and what that meant to them and their small groups they were divided into.

The first year, my small group, met together for about the last hour of the night. People were starting to get tired, people were irritated and people were going off on how the others in the group don’t respect them during school hours and how they don’t feel comfortable letting stuff go – they would rather come to physical blows over the issues. All this while I am tired, irritable, and really did not want to be around catty teenage girls any more.

Hopefully that information helps you to understand why I was not super looking forward to this year’s night with about 100 girls.

But, surprisingly, the night went well.

The girls were almost all there on time. We started with an activity where the students shouted out thoughts that might run through their minds as they walk down the halls and see other females. (Everything was negative.) Then for each word called out, one of the adults tore a small piece off of what had been a beautiful drawing of a female silhouette containing all sorts of positive affirmations about women. The girls got the picture of how words really do hurt and even with tape, after they are said, it is not possible to fully put a girl back together.

We then broke into small groups (mine rocked this time around) and answered some questions about being female. One of the girls had a question about what she would say to her mother to help her become a stronger woman and she said that she would tell her that she is not dependent on men and that if a man is not appreciating the mother, the mother should leave. Awesome. She said she has repeatedly had this sort of conversation with her mother to no avail. At least she knows it and she says that she judges guys she dates on how Unlike her mother’s boyfriends they are.

Then the girls rotated to different stations and did an activity and debriefed how the activity ties to their lives and things they go through. My activity was the card game Spoons. The girls loved it and really understood its connection to gossip.

There was a reenergizing half hour of dancing to all my least favorite songs (ChaCha Slide, Cupid Shuffle, and the Electric Slide). The girls loved it all, though and everyone got on the dance floor and danced.

We ended the night with each girl getting a candle and writing something about themselves that they would like to shine on in the future.

Then we stood in the darkened cafeteria and each lit the candle as the girl said her name and “I want my ____ to shine.”

Pretty cool.

This morning it was pretty cool meeting before school to take a group picture with the girls. And throughout each passing time it is great to see all the girls in their Girls Night Out shirts.

I also like the quote chosen for the back of the shirt:

Sisterhood: Drama’s worst enemy.

Hair Pains

I am going to try my hand at posting each day in November.

Today I went to the mall (which in itself is a big deal for me since I can’t stand the crowds during most hours of the day there). Hung with my good friend Cassandra from KC.

She has always complained about the amount of pain that came with the threading method of brow arching. I have known that she is a punk when it comes to pain, so I brushed it off and told her that I would try it out. I usually pluck mine, which does not hurt, so how much more could it actually hurt than that, right?

Wrong.

That mess really had my eyes about to water.

And I still don’t understand how they are getting at the hairs with some ordinary sewing thread. She was getting it though.

Even when she finished, there was still some stinging going on. She asked if I wanted to put alcohol or lotion on afterward. “Which will hurt less?” “Different people choose different ones.” I chose both and was still feeling the sting for at least five minutes after the process was finished.

Crappy thing is that she didn’t even get all the hairs.

When I got home and could take a closer look, I still had to pluck some stray hairs.

Now, Kid Sis #3 and the mother want me to try waxing.

Perhaps one day.

My mind is playing tricks on me

Monday I had a kid start coughing really hard while working on an internet assignment I had given. I looked at her to see if she was ok, asked if she needed to go to get a drink. She said she was fine. Stopped coughing. Soon after, she started coughing again. I didn't really look up this time, but soon heard more than a cough.

I heard gagging.

I looked up and saw her puking yellow goo onto her desk and onto the chair and onto the filing cabinet next to her desk and onto her laptop; which she had fortunately closed prior to her semi-projectile ejections.

Somehow I didn't verbalize my thoughts about the situation and appeared to the students to be a calm and collected teacher. (I had initially wanted to yell some expletives and ask her why she didn't leave to do that, try to get to the trash can, and why she was at school if she was feeling sick) I called the nurse, then called a custodian. Fortunately the class was about to dismiss to lunch within the minute she started puking so that the area could be thoroughly disinfected without the students getting in the way. The custodian brought in that sawdust stuff I remember from my childhood to put on the vomit and found something to disinfect the surfaces and the laptop.

Yesterday I was sitting in the same hour class and a student came in with about 10 minutes left in class. I was sitting in the front of the room leading a game of review BINGO for the class.

He rushes into the room, kind of out of breath, and charges over to me.

I am in one of the student desks, so he leans over the desk and starts to try to whisper in my face.

"I just finished throwing up in the hallway."

"Then you need to go to the nurses' offices." I really had a harder time with this situation than I did with the girl -- I don't like close talkers and I don't like germs. This dude was combining all of those, as well as some stank-ass, electrified breath to top it all off.

"I don't want to go to the nurses because they will send me home."

This is what I almost said, "Mu-fucca, you need to go home, because clearly you are sick. You need to take your face away from mine and step back before I stiff arm you all the way through the door on your way to the nurse."

Instead I told him that regardless of his desires, he needed to go see the nurse because there are a lot of students at school coming down with sicknesses and that I didn't want him to be spreading his germs to the lot of us.

He left, I got up and got some hand sanitizer. I got it for two reasons:

1. To cleanse my hands (though I wanted to wipe some on my face as well)
2. To sniff (the stuff smells like the gin and tonic that I wish I could have had at the moment -- I can almost understand how the Canadian government didn't want to send the stuff to some of their reservations for fear that they would ingest it for alcohol use)

Now I feel like I am in the remix to the old Geto Boys song "My Mind Playing Tricks on Me". Only instead of being a strange looking little person getting beat up by imaginary people, I am getting sicknesses from strange looking adolescents.

Every time I hear a kid coughing I actually really see the germs flying out of their mouth. When they sneeze, there is a spew of cartoonish green stuff that I have coming out of their nostrils. I have visions of Skittles-colored liquid flying toward me like the Maiden Mist of Niagara.

But I really don't want to taste the rainbow.

I am stocking up on water, hand sanitizer, orange juice, echinacea, and all kinds of good foods. I am sleeping earlier, and if I get sick, I know who to blame.

Well sort of... it has to be one of my 120+ students.

Death -- bring it

Nothing like starting the day with the possibility of death.

Morning started out nice. Actually slept through the night for the first time in days, woke up a bit earlier than normal and did some working out, left for school and it wasn't raining yet.

Oh, but it soon started to rain. Not super hard, but a bit.

I am driving down Forest Park Parkway on my 30 minute trek to school. Driving well since I can probably drive the street with no vision since I do it so often. I'm avoiding the large water puddles and making it through traffic with few stops at lights.

I get close to the DeBaliviere intersection and get ready for the slow down that occurs there (why people don't know how to cross that street, I am not sure).

As I get closer, I realize that there is a big old semi in the right lane next to me. (I don't alway spay attention to street signs, but I am pretty sure there are not supposed to be big trucks on the Parkway.)

The truck starts to veer toward the left -- toward me.

I am now super close to the other side. The ground is wet and I am steadily trying unsuccessfully to brake. I see the middle median and pole coming ever closer to me. I see the side of the truck coming closer to me. (Ever since some relations of mine and some friends have gotten hit by or nearly hit by big ol' trucks, I am slightly hesitant around them... I like to pass quickly and make sure that they can see me so that they don't hit me.) It is dark at 6:30 in the morning and I am pretty sure they guy did not see me as the pole gets closer and closer to me.

Fortunately, I have gone back to rocking out on Grand Turismo during my insomniac nights and am an awesome race car driver. The whole incident reminded me of rally racing.

I veered some more, taking into account the wet ground and the sliding of my Rolli-san (the name for my Carolla) and succeeded in avoiding both the pole and the semi that was close enough that if a person had been in the passenger side, they could have felt their breath ricochet back from the side of the truck. I'm sure they could have seen the holes in the truck drivers shoes through the little foot window in his door.

Needless to say what followed was a nice boost of adrenaline.

Top that off with the fact that I was rocking out to some excellent driving music (100.3 Thursday morning old-school hip hop mix) and you can see that it was a great way to have my life not end.

Today, I am ready for anything.

Bring it.

Parent teacher conferences until 8pm -- bring it. Possibly six-inches of rain -- bring it. Wedding tomorrow for which I have no clothes to go with the weather we are expecting -- bring it. Micro-braids retightened in the front kind of tight -- bring it. A bit of soreness in the legs and arms from working out -- bring it. Kids complaining about their big unit test I am giving a review for -- bring it.

Even if I had been unskilled in my driving, I would have been ready: I have on the cutest under garments today and would have looked real nice if they had to cut me out of the car and then out of my clothes.

Shock and awe?!

Why are people so shocked and upset that the Olympic people picked Brazil over Chicago???

Did they really, honestly think that Chicago had a chance over the other options?

I know that now I will be more likely to actually want to go to watch the Games since it is not in the Chi. Yes it would have been nice to host some of the soccer games here in Da Lou, but still... in which option would you rather vacation? Tokyo, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro, or Chicago?

Sorry Oprah, the Obamas, and others who are disappointed by this decision, but next time, try to be more realistic.