I was thinking about a moment from my college days not too long ago, something that has stayed with me over the years and actually been a pretty big influence on me...
I graduated from a high school that was predominately white. In fact, out of my graduating class, which I would guess had about 150 or so students in it, off the top of my head I can think of about six or seven students who weren't white. So I didn't have a lot of exposure to anything other than a white viewpoint growing up. Sure, our teachers tried. We read Langston Hughes' poetry, and I remember reading Cry, the Beloved Country in English my senior year, but second hand experience just isn't the same. And I was friends with the six or seven non-whites in my graduating class, but--I think because they were so vastly outnumbered--they usually were fairly silent about all but the most overt racism.
College was a different story. I attended Kentucky State University, which was an historically black college. It had integrated at the same time every other university in Kentucky had integrated some 25 years before, but it still had the reputation of being the state's "black" college. As a result, some 51% of the student population was African-American. And it was in college that I REALLY got first hand experience with African-American anger. It sometimes spilled out in my literature courses, especially if the authors were African-American. In fact, I enrolled in a 20th century African-American literature course one semester and only attended one class period. I was told by a couple of people, INCLUDING THE PROFESSOR, that I didn't really belong in the class, that I wouldn't be able to understand the class because I was white. In retrospect, I wish I'd stayed in the class, fought to be in there and participate and maybe even bring something important to the class, but I didn't. I was obsessed with graduating summa cum laude with straight A's, and I figured if my professor were that prejudiced against me that there was no way I was going to get an A. I withdrew the next day and took another Shakespeare course instead.
But I don't want it to sound like the whole time at K-State was bad, or that being a minority (of sorts) on campus was a bad experience. I learned more just from the cultural exposure than I could have ever gotten in any other way, and one lesson--as I said--really came out of all of it.
In the final semester of my senior year at K-State I did my student teaching. It was the only course that I took during that semester (as is the case with most student teachers). The vast majority of student teaching happens at the host public school, but we did attend a couple of sessions at the college campus before the student teaching assignment began and a few after the assignment began. My student teaching class of about 25 students consisted mostly of black students with myself and one other white student. The professor in charge of our group, the person from the university who would observe and evaluate us three times during our student teaching, one day during these meetings set out his expectations for us. He had the official checklist that he would use to evaluate us, and he went down the checklist describing what he was looking for. He discussed educational objectives and teaching materials and all kinds of things like that, but when he got to personal appearance he changed his whole demeanor and said the following:
"I'm going to be honest with you people. In the real world, you're at a disadvantage already. If this is a baseball game, you've got two strikes against you already. Why? Because you're black!" He stopped and glanced over at us two white students. I gave him a "Go on--I get it" motion with my hand, and he continued. "Because of that, I'm going to tell you this regarding your appearance. It is more important for you than for others that you be the best dressed, best spoken, best groomed person in your position in the building. Now, the principals and other administrators, they're probably going to be wearing suits, but I'm not talking about them and I'm not telling you to wear a suit. I'm talking about the other teachers at the building. On the FIRST day you're in your school, I want you to go into the teacher's lounge and look at the teachers in there. Find the BEST dressed teacher in the building, and I want you to dress a little bit better than he or she does." There were some smirks, and his voice raised a little and an edge came to it. "I'm not kidding!" he said. "Here's how I'm going to evaluate you on this. If while I am in your building you are dressed better than any other teacher I see, you will get an 'Exceptional' score. If I see even one person dressed as nicely as you you'll get a 'Satisfactory' score. And if anyone is dressed better than you--even one other teacher--you'll get an 'unsatisfactory' score. And I'm going to have the same expectation involving your grammar, your grooming, and everything else having to do with your outward appearance. Because you're black, you're already at a disadvantage, and because you're black, you will always, always, have to live up to a higher standard than the white people around you!"
I wasn't black, but I took to heart everything he said. He thought he was talking to the black students only, but I heard him loud and clear. I understood that he was giving us a very important piece of advice about how to succeed, and I still follow it today. I have modified it somewhat, though. I'm not a big believer in being better dressed than the best dressed person. I think you should be dressed AS WELL AS the best dressed person. Doing more is like someone wearing a bride's dress to another's wedding. It's just going too far. But I hear that professor's voice in every new situation I'm in, and I always aim to be appropriately addressed for the situation.
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I have no idea why I felt like sharing this with you. It's just something I was thinking about while I was driving to a meeting today. I had no idea when I started this that it would be this long, either. Sheesh, I'm wordy sometimes!
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