On Trayvon

As the leader of a school that is 95% African-American and whose job it is to see my students make it to and through college, the killing of Trayvon Martin has been on my mind often the past few weeks. The killing of a 17 year old boy who was only armed with a bottle of iced tea, a pack of Skittles, and a hoodie has that effect on you, especially when the local police refuse to do anything about it. My students will look just like Trayvon in about 10 years and as this tragedy shows, just looking like Trayvon or Brandon or Joshua or Nadir can be dangerous, even in 2012.

In trying to wrap my head around what happened and what it meant, I’ve read a whole bunch of amazing writing about this case. The piece that is staying with me most is this one by Danielle Belton. It’s long and it’s intense and it’s personal. And that’s why you should go and read it right now. One excerpt in particular hit home, where Belton is writing about the advice that black parents give to their children:

That if we're just "good" we'll be safe. If your son doesn't listen to hip hop, goes to the church camp, gets A's and Bs in school, is polite, says "sir" and "ma'am," if he's a good kid, he'll be safe. That's the bargain black parents make with their children. 

If you are "good" the gangs and the violence and the racism won't get you. You will be safe. You will live to see 25. You will have a great life. Opportunity will abound for you. We will be proud of you. The community will be proud of you. You will be Barack Obama and Michelle Obama and life will be beautiful if you just want it enough. 

Just be "good." Be good, Trayvon Martin. Stay in school. Listen to your parents. And you'll be safe. 

But that's a lie.

I’m not black and my own little boy does not look like Trayvon. So I don’t understand the full intensity and heartache that Belton feels as she writes these words and I can’t pretend to. But the promises that all parents want to make to their children are similar to the ones I make to my students and their families every day. If you work hard, you’ll achieve. All of you are going to college and that’s where you learn to be anything you want to be in life. If there is a problem, we can find a solution. If you’re nice and you treat others with respect, they will do the same.

But this is a lie too. The full tragedy of the killing of Trayvon Martin, combined with the recent violent death of KIPP students in Houston and New Orleans, is that this lie is smacked across our face in a way that we can’t ignore. Being “good”, playing by “the rules”, and having families and schools do everything right isn’t always enough. At our little elementary school, we can teach our students to read above grade level, write beautifully, and master math skills their peers will learn in middle school. We can teach them to be good friends, solve problems, and treat others with respect. But that makes no difference if the wrong person thinks they look suspicious walking home one dark night.

That fact is inescapable and it’s depressing. There is no getting around how sad this fact is. But the killing of Trayvon demonstrates more than ever the necessity of what great teachers and schools do. There is injustice in this world and it’s not going away any time soon, but the only way to counter injustice, ignorance, and intolerance is through education and love. The hardest part of my job is that I can’t shield my students from the hard reality of the world around them, just like Trayvon’s family couldn’t keep him safe. As hard as it is sometimes, this is all the more reason that everyone working in our school needs to work as hard as humanly possible to make what happens inside our building as good as possible for our kids. We need to be building the intellect, character, and imagination of our kids during every single one of our 197 instructional days. Not because it’s going to change everything, but because it’s the only way we can change something.