Step in the Name of Love

Been a while since I've posted, though plenty post-worthy has happened between then and now, but I have an empty classroom and a impulse to vent for a minute ...

Most of my students are out visiting a nearby college campus for "Bulldog Day", an event put on for all Gulf Coast seniors. I would guess roughly 1/3 of the senior class actually goes, the others just take a day off ... fine by me. I think more than a few of them had enough of Shakespearean sonnets for one week anyway. "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" ...

Second period, not a soul in my room, so I'm reading the news online (have about 12 NYT window tabs opened at once) and in walks a special ed teacher who also happens to have a son who attends our school who also happens to be a member of our drama club. He's a junior, shy but smart and definitely a social outcast. Ginger to the bone. He transferred here earlier this year, roughly midway through the first nine-weeks, after his parents had a messy divorce over the summer and his father decided he was too busy to take care of his son. His mother is an emotional/psychological mess, but cares about her son. She saw the type of students that I had coming after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays for our weekly drama club meetings, all very bright, creative and generally good, non-judgemental kids, and eventually convinced her son to start coming. He had a blast and they welcomed him immediately as the environment we have established is amazingly open and carefree (I say amazing because our school is in the deep south and it is a high school after all). Some days while she is busy with work, he stays after Drama Club with me and a few others who want extra help on research papers or college applications. We listen to music and talk about all sorts of things, as those who typically stay tend to be some of the more mature, intelligent and inquisitive at the school. I found out he is a die-hard Jimi Hendrix fan who could play most of his songs on the guitar. He hadn't spoken very much prior to then.

The last month, particularly the last week circumstances as they've been for me, we've been getting ready for the annual Black History Month program. "Why they put a white man in charge of Black History Month?" one student jokingly asked. I killed it last year. We had probably one of the most amazing programs the school or community has ever seen, and I reveled at the opportunity to impart so much that I find important to teach through use of exposure to such a wide audience. Be it original poems, songs I selected, or short skits that I wrote, I chose everything that was included carefully and we did NOT focus simply on black history or celebrate "blackness", whatever that is, but instead focused on several bigger issues. Like a celebration/recognition of all minority groups generally ostracized by societies around the world. Like focusing on topics such as unity, tolerance, compassion, equality and the importance of speaking up for yourself/using your voice. Like challenging the audience to think, not simply to react. Like embracing all races, not being just about black or white, but being about humans, people first and culture, heritage, religion, gender and all else second. It was incredible. And this year was as well. From the opening acapella solo of Kevin Michael's "It Don't Make Any Difference" to the curtain call as the entire auditorium sang "Lean on Me" in unison. I hope to eventually get the video footage and put it together online, and hopefully after today I'll at least have a photo montage posted.

Everyone loved it. Again. To hold two assemblies, each nearly two hours long, with a packed auditorium at this school without a near-riot starting is a feat itself. But we held both groups, upper and lower classmen, at attention the entire performance. We had them laughing at times, cheering at times and at times hanging in silence on every word. The parents who came in the evening (as expected, a poor showing; with nearly 50 students in the show we had perhaps 30 people in attendance ... meaning most of the students performing had no parent or guardian show up) gave them a ton of compliments after the show. This was last Friday, nearly a week ago now.

So, today. This teacher walks in and closes the door behind her, "I need to talk with you Mr. Doyle. Do you have a minute?" Of course I do, come on in. She's visibly nervous and won't look me in the eye. Over the next ten minutes she alternately explains and apologizes that her son may not be able to continue in the drama club and, in fact, may be getting pulled from the school ... because of our Black History Month program. It appears that she, incredibly excited as I had witnessed last week leading up to the show that her shy and awkward son will be performing in front of the entire student body and local community, had invited her ex-husband to see his son on stage. They went for pizza after the show, and all his father did was yell.

Let me explain the routine her son was in. The students had wanted to do some dancing, so I had selected two seniors to help me choreograph a series of dances. West-Side story style, it would be a dance off ... between a white group of students and a black group. One from each, "the leader", would start off alone gesturing and challenging the other then call out their crew. Alternating from either side, the two groups would take turns dancing to, admittedly, stereotypical songs ... Walk It Out, Soldier Boy, etc for the black group and Cotton Eyed Joe, Disco Fever, etc for the white. As expected, it was HILARIOUS and the crowd absolutely went wild. All the white kids, who were at first terrified to dance, got by far the biggest round of applause after each song and their confidence shot through the roof (just want they all need, this woman's son included). In the end, we had both groups come together and hug then dance, all on stage at this point, to the Cupid Shuffle, Jump On It, and finally partner up (black with white) to Step In The Name of Love. As pairs pealed off into the wings of the stage the two "leaders" were left alone stepping with one another and eventually seperating after exchanging, in-sync and still stepping, the male's suit jacket (thanks for the move, Maurice). I saw it three times on Friday, and was in tears laughing each time. It was perfect.

At a school that is decently mixed - approximately 75% black, 20% white and 5% hispanic - there is still an incredible amount of self-segregation. Sure, most are civil, even friendly, towards other races but very few actually spend time outside of class with one another. They still see one another as fundamentally different. I hope our program, this routine and all the other components of it, helped shed light on the fact that we are far more similar than different and that though we may be unique, these distinctions are not necessarily in opposition and make up only a part of who we are.

And what was his father yelling about? That his son was dancing with a black girl. Not slow dancing or hip gyrating, but simply holding hands and stepping. He was, in fact, even furious at the fact that his son was in a club with black kids in the first place or, for that matter, had to go to school with so many black kids. He told his wife he was taking his son out of the school and putting him into a private Christian academy about 40 minutes away in Mobile, AL. We only have two months left for the school year. Apparently he had missed our message and, in his immature, unfortunate reaction, proved how necessary such a message still is, especially in schools and communities like ours.

Before leaving my classroom, she thanked me for all I've done for her son explaining that drama club was just what he needed and how much fun he's had, that she nor her son share her ex-husband's racism and that her son has not been sleeping as he has been so distraught for the past week. I told her I would talk to him today after school (our next drama club meeting) and hopefully calm him some.

2009.

The ignorance is staggering.