identity

The introduction of Ward's "Racial Identity Formation and Transformation" shares the common message we've heard since we entered the field of education: "For some black students, doing well in school is equated with 'selling out' or becoming non-black; thus for them, 'the burden of acting white was too high a price to pay for academic success" (259). This to me is one of the most frustrating things we, as future educators, will have to deal with in an "urban" or more racially diverse school. Primarily, this issue frustrates me because there are sooooo many successful black Americans in many fields of employment that do have high-school and college diplomas. And these aren't hidden in our society; we can buy magazines like Black Enterprise, listen to black politicians speak in the House, senate, and at state and local levels, and watch college basketball on television where more than half the men are the court are black. And college basketball requires at least a high school diploma.

Later, on page 262, she writes, "Transmitted daily to black children are messages that black people are undesirable, inadequate, and inferior... In the face of glaring contradictions between the black experience as non-blacks believe it to be, and the black experience that the black adolescent knows it to be, the task becomes one in which the black child must unravel the faulty and dangerous attacks upon her identity, both individual and group." This message is something very crucial for educators to grasp; especially educators in an urban area or those working with a more racially diverse set of students. The first problem is one we can't fix. We all had a different adolescent experience, and therefore truly know our own. (And really, how well did we know ourselves as adolescents?) This problem aside, adolescence is a difficult and somewhat shitty experience for everyone. Considering the black adolescent experience as a white teacher may be as difficult as our own adolescence was! These kids must "unravel the dangerous attacks on their identity" while at the same time taking in what we're teaching in our classes, because really, isn't that what we're there for? To teach these children our content?

Question being, where and how do we create this balance?