I was cleaning up my classroom after the final bell this afternoon, when I came across a binder a student had left. I opened up the binder to find out to whom it belonged, and quickly identified it as belonging to a Hispanic female student from my 4th period class. Her name was on a piece of paper that had a poem written on it. In the three weeks since this school year started, this student has made it clear that she doesn't like me in the slightest, and after reading the poem, I think I have an idea why - I'm not Mexican. Here is the poem as she wrote it:
Roses are red
Mexicans are brown
That's my race
So don't put it down!!
My MEXICAN pride
I will not hide
My MEXICAN race
I will not disgrace
My MEXICAN blood
flows hot & true
My MEXICAN peeps
I will stand by you
Thru thick & thin
Till the day we die
Our MEXICAN flag
Always stands high
I yell this poem
Louder than all the rest
Cuz every 1 knows
MEXICANS ARE THE BEST!!!
MEXICAN Pride in my mind
MEXICAN BLOOD is my kind
So step aside and let me through
Cuz its all about the MEXICAN crew
Life sucks and then u die
But if your MEXICAN
You die with good ass pride!!!
Send this to 10 Mexicans to show ur pride
BROWN PRIDE!!!
Isn't that great? It's so nice to see a young lady so enthusiastic about her heritage. Just one thing though - Take out the word MEXICAN (her capitalization, not mine) and replace it with WHITE or ARYAN, and replace BROWN PRIDE with WHITE PRIDE, and it quickly becomes apparent how ghastly this poem really is. What makes it worse is that you are not in MEXICO, honey. If that basket case of a country is so damned wonderful, then don't let the door swipe your ass as you saunter back across the border.
Due to her disruptive and grotesquely disrespectful attitude toward me in class, I called home on this student the other day. A woman answered the phone and I asked for the student's mother by name. The response from the woman on the other end was, "No sequenta, no sequenta." The woman only spoke Spanish!
Good Day to You, Sir
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." --Thomas Jefferson
8 comments:
This poem is the biggest bunch of crap. If a white kid had wrtten that about the white race, he/she would have been labeled a racist and disciplined.
It has always amazed me that certain races are allowed to voice their pride of their race and others are not.
Example: Why can there be a "black" Miss America or a "hispanic" Miss America but not a "white" Miss America.
If you were to raise an issue of this girl's poem, you possibly could get labeled "racist."
ooooohhhhhh, this country has such a long way to go.....
Such racist meanderings will not get us there. Rather than "race", I worry more about the growing body of un-educated, disengaged young people who will someday be ....whatever in this country. OH what the plague of entitlement, political correctness, lack of parenting, lack of accountability and responsibility have wrought upon us.....
Chanman, if I was you, I'd not delve too deeply into whatever is in that students "mind" or her family. Let them live in the bed they make. CYA.
Chanman,
Hang in there.
I too went through a process similar to what you write about - sheer frustration! I griped constantly, verbally and inside my head, about the my students' bad behavior. I wagged my head, tsk-tsk'd, gritted my teeth, and sighed deeply. I even grew depressed because life was not what I thought it should be. No longer!
I've just come to realize that reality is very different from what I want. Some might call it a compromise, but I've decided I can't change them, I can only influence. No longer will I take them on with directly. Instead, my actions will speak volumes. Little to no lecture when I discipline, no more "sermons" about how bad they are, no more shame. I will try and influence them in the most covert of ways; I will use what I perceive as weaknesses to my advantage.
They hate to study at home, we'll study in class; they hate to read, we'll read in class; they won't bring pens, pencils, binders, I'll make them keep them in my class; they like to talk, I'll make them talk about history; they are self-centered, I'll make sure to make history about the connections to their lives; they don't want to cooperate, I'll press into them with a silent stare; they want my attention, they'll only get it when they are productive; they won't respect my authority, then I'll teach them about respecting authority and give them reasons why they should obey! I will focus my time and energy for those who are trying.
Sometimes we forget that they are children whose worldview is immature (I think that is what you've done). So I won't condemn them for their views, I'll introduce them to new views, and mature some of the ones they've got. I'd encourage you to have a conversation with the girl who wrote the poem on her binder. She obviously copied it from some email she received. I dare you to ask her, with a curious tone, about how she thinks. If you just listen, you just might win her over. Don't judge her remarks, just listen, and ask more questions.
Another reality check- yeah they hate "white America" (or what they perceive as "white America"), and they hate the nation, its history, and what it stands for . . . but they only have a perception. This perception is based largely on their parents' views that because they are not as succesful, or resourceful, or skilled as others that they are victims.
So turn the tables on them, ask them questions about natural rights (How many of you think you should be able to speak your mind?)and then show them how their thinking agrees with what the country stands for. Teach them that they are their most important resource. Use writings from historians of "color", give them both sides of the history, and make it personal (what would you do if faced with this situation and watch as they find their answer not very different from the historical figure they think a racist.)
An analogy: you can jump on the back of a wild horse and expect to be bucked off or you can spend a lot of time with it, showing it that you mean it no harm and then you can jump on its back.
You are a good man and a good teacher. Put the want ads away - these kids need you. Deal in reality, not woulda, coulda, or shoulda. It might just change your outlook and theirs.
Your friend and teaching buddy,
George M.
P.S.
Two examples:
I once had a conversation with an African-American students abour racism. His statement, " Shoot Mr. Mimmen, Black people are the hella racist."
On another occasion, a student remarked that he would like Obama, a black man, to be President and then put his fingers up to his mouth as if smoking a joint. I later called him on it, privately, pointing that on more than one occasion he had associated black people with weed. When confronted he agreed that it was not respectful to portray his own race that way. I then pointed out that Clinton had tried it too, but did not inhale . . . we had a good laugh.
dis poem iz da bomb any white ppl who wanna b races go ahead we dont give a s**t! mexican pride
Huh? I no comprende what you just habla.
Wow, that was eloquent. Please, in the future, don't take my side.
Make your student write about American Pride.
How great it is to live in a country where you are
not prosecuted or killed for your beliefs.
We change our country one mind at a time.
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