Open Letter to My High School

To Gorham educators, 

I have tried to think about the words I want to say so many times, but I have not been ready. However, the students of color and the Black students in this school district deserve more out of their education. They deserve to feel safe and heard, and I believe that starts by looking critically at the curriculum, school culture, and educational practice. I’m not an accredited professional in academia, nor do I pretend to be. The only thing I want to do is use my voice to tell my story. This isn’t a personal attack on specific teachers or Gorham as a community. It’s the truth as I’ve experienced it. Simply put, the Gorham school department has an issue with race and how they choose to talk about it. 

Since I moved to Gorham in first grade, I have been simultaneously invisible and hyper-visible. My school career was defined by the fact that I was the “Black girl”, and also the fact that no one wanted to acknowledge that I am a Black girl. 

When I got cornrows in elementary school, students would touch my hair without asking. I was constantly bombarded with the question, “Are you adopted?” or “Where are you from?”. I vividly remember explaining to a girl in my class how I could have a white mother, be Black, and not be adopted. To be quite honest this was probably the first and last time anyone ever talked to her about race. During this time in my education, I remember an overwhelming desire to be white. I was surrounded by a white teacher, white children, and all of the curricula taught centered around the white experience or was through a white lens. How could a child in elementary school, not leave school each day with the mindset that they were inferior? The parts of my identity that were outwardly Black, like my hair and my skin tone, I constantly had to explain or were exoticized, but nowhere in my education did I see an appreciation, acknowledgment, or desire to learn about Black culture and the Black experience. My eight-year-old self couldn’t help but crave acceptance, and it seemed the only way I would achieve that in my school system was if I was white. 

As I moved through middle school, I experienced more of the same. Almost every day students would ask me, “What would your hair look like if you straightened it?” I had white friends who would beg me to let them straighten my hair. It was frustrating and infuriating. No one was asking the white girls with straight hair what they would look like with curly hair. I found it unfair that I had to take energy away from my day and my learning to respond to trivial questions about the status of my hair.

I experienced microaggressions like these on almost a daily basis. In a few instances, they escalated to more hostile interactions. However, I recognize that in many spaces within this school system and in society I am an acceptable version of a Black girl. My lighter skin tone means that in situations where I experienced microaggressions, other students with darker complexions and intersectional identities had more hostile or violent experiences. I’m advocating for representation that extends beyond “acceptable” light skin Black characters and encompasses the spectrum of the Black community and their intertwining identities.  

Similar to elementary school, none of the curricula in middle school highlighted the Black experience or showcased any authors of color or history of marginalized groups. I never learned about people of color or women in STEM. I had to educate myself outside of the classroom if I wanted to learn about diversity. I think about how much extra energy and time I spent trying to find media and history I saw myself in. I took the time to educate myself on my Black identity because I felt like it was vital to my survival and I wanted to be proud of who I am. I am grateful that I took this initiative, but I think about all the other marginalized identities that Gorham’s curricula didn’t include and I didn’t have personal stock in. The world isn’t only made up of white people so why does the curriculum in Gorham make it seem like it is? It’s the responsibility of a school system to educate students on diverse identities and experiences. I find it incredibly dangerous that by middle school, students have had no exposure to thoughts, theorems, and ideas that are not written by white individuals. None of my assigned texts included any author of color until my sophomore year of high school. That should deeply concern you. How do you expect Black students and students of color to feel like they belong in this community if the voices they identify with are exempt from their own education?

The boiling point of my experience was my American Literature class sophomore year. Although I found all of the texts in this class to be deeply flawed and not reflective of America, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird had the most detrimental effect on my mental health. 

If educators want to encourage learning and growth in their students they need the correct tools. Huck Finn is one of the least helpful tools an English teacher could work with. When we were reading this book in class, we skipped a huge chunk in the middle of the book. However, when we picked up about four chapters later, nothing had happened. To me, this represents weak writing. In an advanced class, like American Literature, the text should be challenging and engaging students. The only lesson Huck Finn gives students is how not to write. 

Beyond the strength of the writing, Huck Finn narrates a deeply racist and problematic plot. The text is a disgusting example of the damaging white savior complex where a grown African American man looks to a white child for freedom and survival. The book highlights Huck Finn’s journey towards becoming “less racist”, which I felt is never achieved. This book acts as a temporary fix to soothe white guilt and make white people feel better about “how far we’ve come”.

The fact that this serves as the text about America’s brutal history of slavery in our country is wrong on more levels than I could ever articulate. First of all, it’s written by a white man who has never and will never experience the systematic oppression of Black people. The only Black character in this book is a one-dimensional stereotype with no power, original thoughts, or identity. 

So my question to all of you is what does this say to our Black students? I can tell you how it made me feel. It made me feel like I am one-dimensional in your eyes. It made me feel like my story is only valid if a white voice is telling it. It made me feel like I will always defer to white people no matter my age, intellect, or ability. How on earth can this text not be completely damaging and destructive to a Black person’s concept of self-worth? (This is not even including the text’s degrading and despicable use of the n-word.)

The text itself did enough damage, but the place where my pain took on a new level was in our class discussions. As we discussed this text, I felt an obligation to speak in order for a Black perspective to be heard. None of my classmates had had previous discussions about race beyond talking about how awesome Martin Luter King Jr. was and how he had a dream white and Black people could be friends. Meanwhile, I had spent my entire life fielding their microaggressions and being aware of racism in America. These conversations about what it meant to be Black in the United States weren’t new to me. I’d been having them and living that experience my whole life.

Our final discussion about Huck Finn, centered around whether or not it should be taught in schools. I stood on the side arguing it should be removed from schools. My classmates had expressed in chats after class or around the lunch table that they didn’t really like the book, so I thought that even if they didn’t see flaws I saw they would agree it shouldn’t be taught.  However, the majority of the class stood on the side which argued that it should be kept in schools. Their arguments included that it was “just a kids’ book” and it was a good introductory text to the evils of slavery. At this point, my heartbeat was racing with rage. I had never felt so alienated by my classmates. If this was a text that was supposed to be fostering conversations about racism in America, why did the majority of them believe that this book was harmless when I thought it clearly perpetuated every single damaging stereotype about Black people? These students were smart and in advanced classes, but this text was closing their minds to race in America before they were ever opened. There is one particular comment in this discussion that I will forever hold in my memory as one of the most hurtful and isolating moments of my life. 

One student said, “I think it’s hard because white people under exaggerate slavery, but Black people over-exaggerate slavery, so we need something in the middle.” I think my heart stopped after he said this. I couldn’t have heard him right. He said that Black people over-exaggerate slavery. How can you over-exaggerate a system of oppression which sold other human beings into servitude and took away their humanity for four hundred years? How can you over-exaggerate slavery when Black people are still fighting for freedom in this country today? I was so angry. I had wanted to respond to the comment with something along the lines of, “Are you fucking kidding me?!” but at the moment I was speechless. Even writing this four years later, I can’t think of a composed sentence I could’ve said. In retrospect, what hurt me the most was the fact that no one said anything. The teacher didn’t say anything. My classmates didn’t say anything. The discussion just continued and ten minutes later the bell rang and everyone went to lunch. 

This student is walking around thinking that saying things like that is okay because no one told him how problematic and hurtful his statement was. The fact that he wasn’t held accountable is damaging to the world that he steps out into and the people he is going to encounter. Although I wanted to say something when this comment was made, I didn’t, and this is not my fault. The responsibility to hold non-Black students accountable for racism does not fall on Black students. They hold the emotional burden of racism every day. 

I had friends in this class who prided themselves on being socially aware/“woke”. However, when it was time to vocally step up to a comment that threatened my humanity, they were nowhere to be found. Even to this day when I bring up this moment to people who were in that class, they usually respond with “oh my god I totally forgot about that” followed by, “that was crazy, but I loved that class and that teacher.” Even four years later, it hurts to hear. I still can’t believe that my classmates could stand right next to me, hear a statement that dismissed the validity of my identity, and not understand how after that moment going to class every day was emotionally draining and triggering. 

 Although the silence of my classmates rang through my ears, my teacher’s silence spoke volumes too. My teacher’s silence told me that even if they disagreed with what the student said, they prioritized his voice and comfort over my safety in the classroom. When racist comments like these are made, the teacher is responsible to be firmly and unapologetically anti-racist. When racism isn’t acknowledged and corrected it manifests, and who pays the price? Black people. 

I also wanted to highlight To Kill a Mockingbird, another flawed text. The only two Black people in the text are the maid and an alleged criminal. This doesn’t tell the reader that Black futures and dreams matter. Like Huck Finn, the book perpetuates stereotypes and manifests the white savior complex. Both, Calpurnia, the maid, and Tom Robinson, the alleged criminal, serve to enhance Atticus’s role as the white male hero. The book highlights Atticus’s bravery defending a Black man in the deep South, but what about Tom Robinson’s bravery being a Black man in the deep South? Although the entire book is shaped around his case, the readers only hear him speak on a handful of occasions. 

For our project relating to this book, a student in my class did stage makeup. She did a series of “looks” where she was in varying degrees of blackface, supposedly representing Tom Robinson. Again, no one said anything. This time, the shock of silence didn’t come as crushing, but I still felt hurt and alienated. I want to reiterate the fact that this behavior wasn’t corrected or acknowledged, and this person is now walking around and moving through the world thinking that blackface is okay in a specific context. Blackface is not okay. Ever. 

Both of these titles should be removed immediately from the curriculum. As seen in the comment about overexaggerating slavery and a student’s decision to do blackface as a school project, white students aren’t having beneficial revelations about race because of these texts. No one wins when texts like these are taught, and Black students like myself are left with traumatic experiences. I am just beginning to cope with the damage these titles had on my identity as a Black woman and the fact that I didn’t feel safe or heard in my school system. We need books by Black authors and authors of color. We need to value intersectionality in the curriculum. We need stories that challenge the idea that whiteness is the default. I wish I had the opportunity to read about Black love, joy, and resiliency in my assigned texts, not just Black oppression and systematic racism from a white perspective. I think students across the board would benefit from reading about the multi-faceted nature of the Black experience and seeing multi-dimensional characters of color.

This isn’t a quick fix. The commitment to inclusion takes constant learning and work, but it’s necessary to ensure that Black students feel empowered in their education and safe in their schools. 

With power, strength, and resiliency,  

Saoirse Imani Herlihy

from my previous blog posted on 06.11.20