This Is Why I Hate White People

Last week, I taught about the American Revolution. Meaning last week I talked to myself about the American Revolution while my students attempted to text message their friends from phones stashed in their laps, below desk level.


Me: So the American Revolution inspired other revolutions…


Them: Click click click click click–occasional eye contact–click click click click click


(I approach one.)


Me: Alright, hand it over.


Student: What?!! (Outraged)


Me: Your cell phone.


Student: What are you talking about?! I don’t have a cell phone. (They always place both open hands on the table as if this clears them of all possible guilt.)


Me: In your lap.


Student:Oh that? I was just… (Checking the time, showing so and so a picture of my baby, reading an emergency message from my Mom, using the calculator function….in History class…)


Me: You’ll get it back at the end of the day. (I tuck it into my drawer along with the others in my collection.)


Student: This is why I hate white people.


This phrase–“This is why I hate white people” no longer carries any weight with me. It gets thrown on the pile of other favorite student sayings overused throughout the day, such as:


• “Can we have a free day?” (I have never said “Yes”, but they persist in asking every day, apparently believing that at repetition number 40,912 they will break me.)
• “Do we have to do this?” (Again, there’s only one answer to this question. “This is school,” I sometimes point out. Wisely. “You should not be surprised to be given an assignment.)
• “How much is this worth?” (When they ask this, they are usually trying to decide how much it will hurt their grades if they just blow it off. My standard answer is 4 million points.)


Along with these, “This is why I hate white people” is not especially original or wounding. I hand out a test? This is why they hate white people. I present a powerpoint. This is why they hate white people. I make them sharpen their own pencil when they ask me to do it for them. No, no…this is why they hate white people.


Some of my students are white and they still say it…in which case they mean, of course, specifically lame white people like myself who insist on talking about boring historical revolutions during their text-messaging time.


Yes, it is true that I am white. Lily, my-dad-is-a-baptist-pastor white. Even if I somehow lost track of this fact, my third hour would not let me forget it. As they like to point out I am “white girl pretty”, which means not thick and curvy pretty, but like “pretty that disappears when you turn around” pretty (i.e. lacking junk in the trunk pretty).


I may be other-standard pretty. This I can live with, I tell them, if they do their work. I set down another worksheet in front of them…and surprise of all surprises, this worksheet happens to be the exact reason they hate white people.


To read about how we roll on picture day, click here.
To read about our setting, click here.