#BehindTheScenes 56 - Education

This #BehindTheScenes is a strange one, and more of reflection than anything else. I am sorry about posting this a day later than usual, but I did not think it was appropriate to post anything yesterday, no matter the topic, especially this one. It's about my education. I am not just talking the schools I've been to. It's about how I grew up too, and the social structure I was told was the right and only pathway.

Despite my father's interactions with people of all classes, colors and creeds, he spoke as if we were set apart from everyone else. Despite living in what they called "Little Poland" today, there were plenty of immigrants that were not from Europe, but from Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Haiti, and much, much more. They settled in the same neighborhoods as the Polish immigrants. Immediately, there was racial tension. I cannot even remember the amount of times a riot was started...and the police turned the other way.

There was another aspect that my father wanted us to focus more on: reading. My grandfather was an Episcopal priest and very well-read. My father did not want us to experience the same things he did and desired, more than anything else, to have a degree and a better life. Of course, it never happened that way, but that is another story.

I am not going to debate the rights and wrongs of what my father did. What I can tell you is that I LOVE reading. When I was small, it was books that stayed with me, even in the toughest times. I did not have to be in my world, and I could follow the heroes into the next stage of their adventure.

Reading was a form of education, but it was society that taught me to gaze past my privileges.

Remember how I said that I grew up within the Polish community and that Hispanic immigrants moved into the same neighborhood? Imagine being a little girl, already had seen the worst in her parents, and you are listening to the adults yell at each other between houses. There is loud music, cars horns and alarms going off and bags of white and green waved over your head.

Being autistic, the noises frightened me. I would put my hands to my ears. Seeing my father threaten the neighbors was also scary. He was armed and was not afraid to let someone know about it. There had been a rapist upstairs and one of our neighbors had a kid who liked to set fires. I remember coming home from shopping with my mother and the fire department was at our house. My father's car had been set ablaze and was a total loss.

The atypical attitude towards People of Color was to treat them as criminals.

They brought drugs and violence, I was told. They were obnoxious and dangerous. Finding exceptions to the rule was difficult and only the people they knew were vetted.

It did not help that I went to Catholic school. In the nine years I spent there, there was little diversity, since 99.99% of the school population was white and Polish. Although they accepted all Roman Catholics, vey few people of color passed through their doors when I was there. I graduated with two Puerto Rican classmates and only knew one Black person, and she was only there for my sixth grade year.

Today, I know this as a form of racism and colonialism.

I am sure a lot of you are groaning as you read the last line. Please forgive me. Let me explain how. And if you have something to add or I am wrong, please someone comment!

1. Forcing children to associate certain attributes, music genres, etc., to a specific ethnicity and/or race is racism.

2. Naming all People of Color as violent and pinning them as drug dealers is racism.

3. Excluding proper history and depicting the world as predominantly white is racism.

4. Making religious/historical figures white when they are not is racism (here's looking at Jesus).

5. Discouraging children from making friends with different races is racism.

6. Protesting about People of Color taking buses to predominantly white schools is racism.

That is only the beginning.

If you don't think that's racist, I dare you to look at from your perspective. Would you like your history to be erased completely? Told that it should not be taught in schools because it's "woke"? Have riots and massacres buried deep in fires and destruction, and told to move on?

It's colonialism and it's wrong. I was wrong to carry that perspective with me and continue generational trauma. I am here to educate myself and to help where I can, when I can.

And I beg for forgiveness for anybody I have hurt.

Namaste! Have a great rest of your week!

#Education #SocietysIlls #WhitePeople #Neighbors #CatholicSchoolGirl #PolishCommunity #Racism #CriticalRaceTheory