It was lovely and summerlike in Streeterville most of the day today. The sun was shining and it reached 81 degrees at one point. According to the weather service, it has dropped significantly in the past hour or so. They say it's 62 degrees with light rain, but I'm skeptical about this one. When I arrived home it was 80 degrees at the Mini. I went out for a little 6 mile run and made it back before the rain began. It did not feel like low 60's out there. Of course I was sweating from running 6 miles and that may have skewed my perception. At any rate, the view from the 14th floor was great today. I awoke this morning and looked out the window to see 3 fishermen in a small boat out near the concrete barrier, casting their lines and trying to catch something. This afternoon I arrived home and looked out the windows only to spy the first sailboat of the season. It was a lovely vision in white, white hull on the boat itself, and white sails filled with the wind. It floated effortlessly and silently across the lake. This ladies and gentlemen is clean, non-polluting transportation. Admittedly, it is an expensive piece of transportation, but clean nonetheless.
Yesterday I mentioned that I was spending the week testing the best and brightest of the next generation all this week. I am the Advanced Placement Coordinator for a public high school. This morning as the kids puzzled over their AP English Lit exams, I was studying them and it occurred to me that the best and the brightest doesn't look the same as it once did in America. When I was in high school, the integration of schools was still a new concept and most African-American kids and Mexican kids didn't have a snowball's chance in Hades of being included in that list. "The Best and the Brightest" was a list that was very white. It was very suburban. It was very clean-cut.
It's really amazing to think of all the racial and ethnic stereotypes that are passed along in America. Even today, most people think of the best and the brightest as an amalgam of white upper-middle class kids and a healthy mix of Asian kids thrown in. This stereotype persists, despite the fact that an African-American man who was at the top of his class at Harvard Law, currently resides in the White House. These stereotypes persist, despite the fact that any number of Latino men and women rise to the top in their fields, Governors, Doctors, Lawyers, Judges, journalists, scientists, etc., etc., etc.
I looked around the room this morning at the group of kids from my school in the Back of the Yards neighborhood and realized that this is a group of kids who will be successful, who will go to college, who will lead productive lives, who will have happy families, and who are the future of America. And they do not look like the productive, creative America that most of America sees in their minds (and their stereotypes). Sometimes the best and the brightest are little skinny black girls and tall pregnant black girls who made a little mistake. Sometimes the best and the brightest are very rotund Mexican girls with a very sharp intellect and a very good work ethic. Sometimes the best and the brightest look like the kind of guys that many white Americans cross the street to avoid when they see them coming. Sometimes the best and the brightest are flamboyantly gay.
Oh there are some kids in the mix that look more traditional. Some kids just look the part of the nerd. There is no amount of blackness or Mexicanness that can hide that trait. The shirts and pants never fit quite right. The boys usually prefer khakis over jeans. Some of them even have the stereotypical thick glasses. These kids for some reason are what they are and the gangs declare them off limits and they go about their lives being very nice but nerdy kids with excellent grades and a love for teachers and school, and they go off to college one day and don't usually come back to the neighborhood again.
Remember all those stereotypes of black kids and Mexican kids. Black boys are a bunch of thugs and the girls are just waiting to get pregnant and start scamming the system. Mexican kids are lazy and have no ambition. Well these kids are black kids and Mexican kids and they are most assuredly not like that. They are genuinely a part of "The Best and the Brightest." Oh there are some kids at school who live up (or down as the case may be) to the stereotypes, but that Dear Friends is the subject of another essay. I am here to tell you that I have seen the future of America and it is decidedly not white, upper-middle class snotty kids from the suburbs. And that is quite alright with me. I guess underneath it all I'm a bit of a softy. Almost have to be to be a professional in education. But the upshot is that I love all these kids. They are great kids and I really like being a part of helping them succeed, of helping them reach for something higher and beating the neighborhood. When that happens, that is my reward.
I guess what I'm getting at is that intelligence and ability knows no color. It knows no ethnicity. Neither does stupidity, and I have seen my share of white kids from so-called good backgrounds who definitely are not the sharpest tack in the box. In spite of stereotypes about Asian kids, I have seen Chinese kids who would much rather skip school, get high, and play video games than get into Harvard and play violin on the side. We all need to adjust our realities a little. Sometimes those kids in the baggy pants may not be thugs. Sometimes those swishy black gay guys may be going to law school. Sometimes an overweight woman of Mexican heritage may just save your life in an Emergency Room. Get used to it. Quit looking at the color and ethnicity and start looking at the people.
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