Some Bald White Guy

It has not been a bad Ground Hog Day in Streeterville, 29 degrees at the Mini under partly cloudy skies. There are rumors of snow overnight but a 40 something degree kind of warmup later in the week. It's February and that's a short month and that means that March is around the corner and that means that Spring is practically imminent. Too bad the groundhog said 6 more weeks of winter. This begs the issue, "Who is more accurate, Punxatawny Phil(Famed hibernating weather prognosticator) or Tom Skilling?(Famed WGN weather prognosticator)"

This brings to mind an exchange that I had with my mother at age 6. At some point I became really tired of winter and I asked my mother, "When can I go barefoot again?" She was busy and distracted and replied, "When Spring comes." Being the persistent sort I pressed onward, "When does Spring come?" Quick on her feet as always, Mom replied, "In March," and went back to those dutiful mother things she was always doing. Being dutiful myself, I shut myself up and didn't mention it again, until March 1. On March 1 it was in the neighborhood of 45-50 degrees outside, but I remembered my mother telling me clearly, "In March." Having a good memory and what I considered to be right on my side, I marched into the kitchen and said, "Mom, it's March. Can I go barefoot?" You can imagine the shock and disbelief. Those of you with children,....never wonder at the logic of a child.

Forgive the awkward segue, but I felt it necessary to tell that previous little story, just as I feel it necessary to tell the next one and they are totally unrelated and I can think of no seamless way to switch from one to the other. Maybe a little transition music? Whatever works for you.

I have mentioned before, in these pages, that I work for the Chicago Public Schools at an outpost in the Back of the Yards neighborhood. This school's student population is approximately 2/3 Mexican-American and 1/3 African-American. The Principal is African-American and as a result, the staff is heavily African-American. Before working at the outpost, I worked at another oupost, located at 77th and Ingleside on the Southside of Chicago. This school was 99.9% African-American, at least as students went. The staff was only 75% African-American. In spite of being a white male, I have become accustomed to being a minority. We won't even go into my political and social leanings here.

Anyway, I have been working in schools where I am a minority for quite some time. One cannot help being affected by the culture they are surrounded by and sometimes I forget who exactly I am. I find myself walking around neighborhoods on the Northside of Chicago, and thinking, "Man there sure are a lot of white people here." Trips to visit Babs's family in Iowa are eye-popping. Not a hint of melanin for hundreds of miles. The cars are washed out too. Everyone drives around in white or gray cars. OK, a lot of them are pickup trucks or minivans. Nevertheless, there is not a hint of color in sight.

To make a short story long, though, I was in a classroom the day after Rod the Mod was convicted in a court of impeachment. We now had a new Governor and I took it upon myself to see just how many of the kids in my class followed the news closely enough to know the facts about this new Governor. I teach social science courses to high school kids. It's my job to keep them posted on major developments, like a black President, or a Governor being impeached, etc., etc., etc.... So anyway, there is a space on my board (It's a white board, not a black board. I use dry erase markers, not chalk.), where I have what is known as a bell-ringer or a Do Now. It's a little short exercise that the kids have to do first thing, while I take attendance, and it gets them engaged and the tardy students don't do it and they don't get points for doing it. The Bell-Ringer for this day was simple, "Who is the Governor of the State of Illinois?"

In 3 classes, one or two kids knew the new Governor's name. They saw it on TV. In one class no one knew that Rod the Mod was out and Pat Quinn was now the new Governor. In one class, no one knew the new Governor's name, but several knew that Rod the Mod was out. The closest anyone came to knowing the correct answer was, "I don't know his name. It's some bald white guy."

For many of my students, this is reality. The people who run things, the bankers, the politicians, the people with power are just, "some bald white guy." I don't think it matters in their minds. They're just all middle-aged bald white guys in suits, one collective power-broker who tells everyone else what to do and makes all the big decisions about government, policy, and business. These kids are unaccustomed to seeing people in power who look like themselves and those around them.

It then becomes my job to put a positive face on the "bald white guy." I'm not bald, but have a receding hairline and a big bald spot on the back of my head. So in the larger sense of the statement I am one of those "bald white guys." I have to make them real and show all of these kids that we actually care and want them to succeed. It is in some larger sense of education my job to put a human face on "bald white guys," just as Barack Obama has to put a caring, human face on African-Americans for white America. We're both trying to be ourselves while working in a job that is overwhelmingly populated by people of another race and trying to serve a population that is overwhelmingly of another race. While it is true that Mr. Obama is President of the U.S. and I am but a teacher for CPS, we both have to, daily, convince people that, "Hey, I look different than you, but really we're not so different."

There are people on both sides of the color barrier that may never get over that barrier, but a great many, faced with the reality of "some bald white guy," with a very human and normal face, manage a few steps in the right direction. We're not all the same any more than all the Javiers and Joses and Jermaines and Jamils are. Let's hope that "bald white guys" as a whole can prove themselves, and someday, no one will see just "some bald white guy" or "some weird-looking black guy" or "some little short Mexican guy" but just "Some Guy."

So, all of you bald white guys out there, it's on you now. Time to let the world know that, "Bald white guys rock."