Elephant with a Tuba

Two nights ago I had a dream where I was very proud of the Halloween costume I made, it was an elephant with a tuba. What does that even mean anyway?

I'm telling you that now, so that my whole entry isn't too serious. It's a tactic.


Yesterday at tutoring I stayed late talking with a girl who I only tutor sometimes. We talked for a long time. I tried to get her to read this article about the great wall of china and she refused and then went into this racist, awful rant. I kept her long after seven talking to her about why the words "chink" and "spic" were bad. She goes to a school where she is the one of the only white kids there and gets teased a lot because of her race. So, after tutoring you hear me half-shouting "Call them a fucking bitch, cause that's what they are, but don't call them a racist name back. I know you're better than that." Here I am very loudly proclaiming "'Chink' is just as bad as n-word. You don't like it when your mom calls you a nigger-lover and you call her racist. It's the same thing." Then we talked for a long time about how hard it is for her, and how she wants to be the bigger person. "I know it's not all of 'em" she said. Which of course spiraled us into the conversation about looking at people as individuals etc. etc. Do you think I'll get kicked out of tutoring for saying every terrible word I know - what if my words were taken out of context? She says on Wednesday she's going to tell me how well it went in school when she tried to think of other things to say instead. "you're right, I'm better than that." she said.

I always feel devastated when I try to reprimand a kid and tell them that that language is wrong, and those ideas are wrong and hurtful - when - when that's all they ever see or hear. So, what usually happens is that I make a feeble attept and then things clatter loudly on in a different direction and the teachable moment passes. I feel a little defeated that my window of opportunity with this one child has closed. Because in the long run - most of the students I work with are not going to find the cure to cancer - they'll be lucky if they graduate from high school. Their multiplication tables can help them only so far. It's a bigger picture that I guess we're there for. To illuminate that there is a world that stretches beyond Falls Road, and stretches beyond that Avenue. To give a glimmer of understanding, that as a young woman, you aren't destined to one day to live in your cousin's basement with your 2nd baby's daddy who probably hits you but 'it ain't so bad'. But instead, that you have choices and a will and there is a wide variety of people and promising outcomes out in the world. Its this broader view of mankind that seems impossible to reach. Maybe they will choose to stay here and live on these streets named after trees forever, but maybe they will make our little town a kinder place to live, and raise their babies.

It's funny to be an optimist and to work (even for a couple hours a week) in a place that you find devastating. Something happens to you where your optimism settles down from a roaring, propelling excitement and drive, to a sometimes-silent, simmering stone down in a pit somewhere, that you hope will keep someone a little bit warmer one day in this world which you're beginning to understand is a cold place just like everyone always said.


But now, think of me in a home-made elephant with a tuba costume. It really makes this entire post more light-hearted I think.