October 3, 1995

OJ Simpson has just been acquitted, and the students at my school are cheering. I am their teacher. I am agog. I can’t believe these kids can be this wrong, this stupid. I think they’re so naive, and have so much to learn about the world.

I moved to Texas in the summer of 1994 to teach science and soccer at The Chinquapin School (now Chinquapin Preparatory School). It’s a private school for underprivileged kids in Houston, with a 100% college admissions rate. The boys live on campus during the week, to better focus on their work, and keep them out of trouble. The girls, even more underprivileged, have to ride the bus for an hour each way, because many of them have responsibilities at home. In this tiny rural oasis outside the city limits, these brown and black kids (with a sprinkling of white kids in each grade), are “safe”. I, and the other teachers (all white, except for one alumnus) are here to teach these kids the ways of the world, of our world; the college world. The privileged world. 

They’re celebrating this verdict, and I don’t get it. More than that: I don’t like it. I disapprove of it. 

That’s it. That’s the memory: A young, smarty-pants white guy shaking his head at a bunch of brown and black skinned kids celebrating that someone with their skin color didn’t get punished by cops with my skin color.

This memory fills me with regret and shame. 

I can remember how worldly and wise I felt at 25. I’d seen most of America, and even left it’s shores behind, and had the stamp on my passport to prove it. I’d seen the world, and could speak to some of its citizens in their own language, though not to the parents of many of my students in their own language.

Of course some of their celebration was mere adolescent joy at seeing authority not in total control. Of course, if I had asked, the vast majority of the kids wouldn’t have been able to give me a reasonable explanation as to the nuances of the verdict, and certainly not to the standard that would earn them a high at the school they were attending. But there’s part of the problem. I would be the one deciding the grade. I would get to decide if they’d succeed or fail. I had the power. The one thing in that memory that brings me an iota of comfort is that I didn’t exert power over their feelings. I just stood there flummoxed. That’s a start. 

I think it’s safe to say, from 25 years out, that the students of Chinquapin taught me much more than I taught them. A few of them learned Newton’s Laws, and a handful learned how to write a simple computer program. I know, because I’m still friendly with many of them on FB, that I made a positive contribution to some of their lives. But the raw truth is that those kids were witnesses to, and midwives of the death throes of my extended adolescence.  If the kids responded to me, it was because they saw the thing we had most in common was that I was a child, like them. 

I don’t have a summary. I can’t explain how angry I still am that those men and women, and their families, still have to fight for their dignity every day, in ways I’ll never experience. I’m not seeking validation or reassurance from any one of those students. You’ve already given me the honor of getting to know you as young people, and allowing me to continue to witness your lives in any small way you choose. 

I’ll just add this to the end. It’s a video from Houston today, and it’s emblematic of  the spirit of the kids I taught. Be safe. https://twitter.com/Mike_Hixenbaugh/status/1267901154601701376