by Rachel Gold
“Good,” Mrs. Warren said. “Thank you.”
“Yes,” Milo agreed. “Now, have you looked to see what percentage of examples used in math, science, history, English are white people? Because looking at my grandkid’s homework, it’s above ninety percent. You think you can get that down closer to sixty?”
“Our district is above ninety percent white,” the principal said.
“Are you preparing students to live their whole lives in this school district?” Mrs. Warren asked, disbelief heavy in her tone.
“No. But we’re not doing something wrong here. Aside from some individuals who need training, we’re teaching the way we’ve taught for years and no one’s complained.”
“Because they moved away,” Mrs. Warren said. “You’re in a middle-class district. Families of color here have choices. We leave. I’ve been looking at houses in L.A. for two months now. When my husband gets transferred out there, do you think we’re going to stick around for a ninety percent white curriculum? You think I’m not going to put Aisha in the absolute best school for her?”
“We’re a very good school with high standards,” the principal said.
Milo sighed, a long, slow, low sound. “Jenny, a lot of schools are. We’re losing smart kids to other districts. When was the last time we won a regional Science Bowl? And you have an opportunity to make a difference, to do things better. If we bring you some information, will you read it and think about it, really think about it? Get someone in here to consult on this?”
“The budget…” Our principal—her first name was Jenny?—trailed off. “Is Aisha that good? Is it worth riling up everyone?”
“How often do you decide what kids are worth when they’re in tenth grade?” Mrs. Warren asked. “Aisha’s going to medical school whether you get your act together or not. But you’re failing hundreds of kids.”
“I didn’t used to see it either,” Milo admitted. “Think about it. If you came in here and all the teachers were Asian American, and so were most of the kids and most of the examples—and I’m saying Asian American because that environment makes white people feel stereotypically stupid—and everybody expected you to fail because that’s how white kids are, no discipline, how well do you think you’d do on your schoolwork? Do you think you’d tell anyone about it? Or do you think you’d go head down and break yourself trying to be better? How many kids are you going to let that happen to before it’s too many? Because the way I see it, one is too many.”
“As a district, we don’t have a lot of diversity, that’s not our fault.”
“No, it isn’t,” Milo said. “But now it’s your responsibility.”
That word hung in the air for a long time, until the principal said, “I’ll think about it.”
“Thank you.”
Mrs. Warren and Milo came out of the office, saw us sitting in the chairs—because with the door open we could hear fine—and gave us a wave to follow them.
On our way across the parking lot, Aisha said, “Thanks, Mom. That was badass.”
Mrs. Warren grumbled, “Lord help me, that woman. Milo, you know the principal, will she take action?”
“She’ll watch that class like a hawk. Beyond that, my best guess it’ll take a year or two to get some real training going, and the teachers who really need it won’t get it. So I’d like to propose a two-part plan.”
“Which is?” Mrs. Warren asked.
“First, pick up dinner, plus wine for you and beer for me. Then, we see how many friends I still have on the school board.”
“Your kitchen or mine?”
“Yours, I’ll bring the second half of that Bundt cake and that book you lent me last week. Kids, you’re telling us if that teacher doesn’t switch up the tasks by Monday.”
* * *
Dinner blurred by, all of us over at the Warren household, Milo and Mrs. Warren retelling the story of the meeting to Pops, Mr. Warren and Tariq. Congratulations turned into serious talk and strategizing. Under the table, Aisha rhythmically bumped her foot against mine.
Afterward, she said to everyone, “We’re going to watch X-Men cartoons, holler if you’re all watching something that isn’t boring.”
I followed her upstairs and sat on her bed, where I had hundreds of times, her beside me, her laptop in front of us. This was where I needed to keep sitting for the next two and a half years until we graduated high school.
She did turn on X-Men cartoons, fairly loud, and I tried to watch. My eyes burned no matter how much I blinked them.
Aisha said, “Hey,” really softly, and rubbed her thumb across the wet streak on my face.
“Your mom said ‘when,’” I whispered. “Not if. When your dad gets a job, you’re not going to stay.”
“I heard.”
“I’d run away, hop a train, come to L.A., but I don’t think I could bring Wolvie.”
Aisha tugged my head and shoulders into her lap and curled over me. “Mom hasn’t made an offer on anything, I asked. We have time.”
“How much?” I asked. “Because it’s not enough. If it’s not forever, it’s not enough.”
Her cheek pressed to mine and her barely voiced words, “I know,” breathed cold across my tears.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Late November 2017
The next week, Mrs. Alexander did switch the classroom jobs around and (shocking!) eliminated the measuring and washing job. I guess she couldn’t get her head around giving that to a white kid. I almost asked her about it, but I was afraid that would blow back on Aisha if I did.
Of course our going to the principal was going to blow back on Aisha anyway because Apocalypse does not rest. He was saying all kinds of evil into Mrs. Alexander’s brain and she didn’t know how to fight him because she was so wrapped up in defending her so-not-racist self.
We got emails that she’d be taking a leave of absence in the spring and there’d be a new AP Chem teacher. We also got our updated spring schedule and Aisha had been moved to another Chemistry class—not an AP class. Before leaving, Mrs. Alexander had tanked Aisha’s grade enough to bump her out of the class. Mrs. Warren was back in the principal’s office in a flash. But two white kids had also been reassigned to the easier course, so the school was delaying with some business about not wanting to treat Aisha differently than any other student.
Not being in AP Chem was a setback to getting into the International Baccalaureate program next year. Aisha hadn’t been getting a great grade in Chemistry, but only because she was so pissed every time she had to go into that classroom. Now she’d have to sit in boring, regular chemistry thinking about how Mrs. Alexander had screwed her. How hard would it be to learn anything feeling that way?
I spent a week furious and trying not to vent around Aisha. She’d been a bundle of locked-jaw rage for days.
I skipped my Sunday World History session and asked Aisha to walk the dogs with me. She bundled up in full down coat, scarf, hat, mittens, even though it was still in the mid-forties and I hadn’t switched from wearing my fall jacket.
I had three dogs in the neighborhood that I got paid to walk on weekends. We picked up the easy one first and then went to the house with two big rambunctious dogs. We brought them into the fenced yard and let all five run around sniffing and playing before we tried to walk them. The two big dogs romped while Wolvie got the two smaller dogs to chase her.
I kept stealing peeks at Aisha, trying to gauge how okay she was. I wanted to see her cheeks bright with cold, her eyes laughing. Instead she looked metallic, glints of steel in her eyes, like she wanted to have the bladed claws of the superhero Wolverine instead of the mental powers of Jean Grey.
I told her, “When you’re a doctor, you’re going to come back here someday, for a conference or whatever, and Mrs. Alexander’s still going to be a high school Chemistry teacher. When you start winning awards, maybe I’ll happen to forward some of those news stories to her.”
She bumped her shoulder against mine. “And your awards.
Send those too.”
“Yeah, when I’m famous for figuring out how to train cats.”
“Nope,” she said. “For exposing how cats have been training people.”
“No way! I’ve sworn never to tell. Don’t even let the cats know you’re in on it—you know how they get.”
She almost laughed.
I said, “I think we need a plan.”
Aisha watched the dogs running in circles. Pickles bossed the lot of them, herding them to one side of the yard and then the other. Wolvie helped without appearing to help, moving her body on the other side of the group from Pickles.
“We’re the X-Men, right?” Aisha asked.
“Or X-People,” I said with a humorless smirk
“But we’re not, like, Iron Man or Dr. Strange. We don’t fight solo. I think we need more X-Men. We’ve only got my parents and Milo, that’s hardly a full team.”
“And we need a lot of people to take on Apocalypse. He’s really deep in some people’s brains.”
“Exactly,” she said.
“There’s Dr. Wade and Tariq. I can talk to Jon and his new boyfriend. We need more white people too. I’ll make a list,” I said. “White people need to be doing more in this fight.”
She flashed me a grin. “I’ll talk to Meta and Sofi.”
“What do we do with our team?”
Aisha said, “I don’t know about AP Chem. I can push it, with Mom, and get back in. But who knows what the teacher’s going to be like. If I’m back in that class with some white teacher who thinks I got the other white teacher suspended, it’s going to be a real crapfest.”
“So what do you want to do?” I asked.
“Truth? Take Physics. It’s way cooler than Chem, sorry.”
“Can you get into second-semester AP Physics?”
“No. I’ve been looking at the textbook but I’m not there yet. I talked to Darius and he said maybe I could get an independent study. Meta did one last year because our school doesn’t have Hindi.”
“She knows Hindi?”
“She doesn’t; that was kind of the point of studying it,” Aisha said. She picked up a stick and tossed it to keep the big dogs running around. “She had a teacher track her progress and did it through an online course.”
“You have a teacher in mind?”
“Mr. Saito, but I haven’t asked him yet because…I had this other idea.”
“I like your ideas,” I said.
“I signed up for the Science Bowl.”
Our school’s Science Bowl was supposed to be an informal, fun competition where students could show off their science smarts. But in reality it was a cutthroat fight for bragging rights and resources. Each grade had its own competition level. At the tenth grade level, students weren’t going on to regional competitions, but placing in any of the top three spots meant you’d have teachers’ attention and they’d give you time and supplies and answers when you needed them.
“Oh hell yes,” I said. “I’ll help you study for it.”
“That’s what we need a team for. Not just studying, but being there. Can you be okay with me inviting Meta and her family?”
“Yeah. Of course. Who else?”
“Sofi and…” She trailed off.
“Are you going to invite Dr. Wade?”
“I thought about it. Do you think she’d come?”
I said, “I’d love to have her there, selfish reasons, of course. You want me to ask her?”
“No, I got it. Will you ask Jon?”
“Yep. Maybe this new guy he’s with can bring some friends from Saint Paul.” I hadn’t seen much of him since he’d gotten a steady boyfriend, but I figured he’d still say yes. “What about Eve and Trina?”
“Might as well ask, they won’t come anyway,” Aisha said.
“I could tell them it’s a makeup party.”
I clicked my tongue and Wolvie came over to get attached to her leash, the other dogs following her example.
“I don’t think they’ve got the right foundations for that party,” Aisha quipped. I’d told her about the makeup closet at Trina’s.
“Huh, well then, it’s a World History study group.”
“Pretty sure Trina and Caden shouldn’t be making out during Science Bowl,” Aisha said, almost smiling.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Early December 2017
The smart thing might’ve been to ask each person separately and deal with whatever they were going to say, but I didn’t have the patience for that.
I texted Jon: Can you come over to Trina’s with me on Sunday and agree with everything I say?
He wrote back: Depends. Are you going to diss Sam Smith again?
I didn’t diss him the first time, but yeah, I’ll leave him alone. I need people to be better backup for Aisha, that’s what we’re talking about.
He waited a few beats longer than I wanted to reply, but then he said: I’m there.
Trina had given up the pretense of World History project sessions now that Caden had the temple model finished. She invited a bunch of people to come hang out and told the rest of us to invite anyone we wanted. I’m pretty sure she didn’t expect me to show up with Jon. She triple-taked and I gave her the head shake I hoped was the universal gesture for: We’re still super gay.
Trina’s living room was mainly filled with girls talking about TV shows and sports and eyeshadow, but Jon fit into that group easily. He wasn’t a super girly gay guy, but he did love his eyeliner.
I nibbled Doritos and figured out how many people in the room I knew. In addition to the core group, there were four other girls from World History, two from the basketball team sitting with Eve, one guy that Caden had brought with him, plus the guy Sofi had been hanging out with the last month, though they weren’t officially dating yet. Out of dozen people, I knew the names of about two-thirds. And everyone except Sofi was white, but this time that actually worked into my plan.
I stood up and said, “Hey” a few times to get people’s attention.
“Speech?” Eve asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “Look, I need your help. All of you. Students of color at our school have a shit time of it, everything from being stopped in the hall excessively by the hall monitors to being given grunt work in class to being expected to fail all the time. Plus what we’re learning is super white and it’s not preparing us to live in the diverse world we actually live in. Aisha and her mom and me and Milo already talked to the principal, but I need your help too. We can help change this.”
“Why isn’t Aisha here?” Eve asked.
“Because she shouldn’t have to be. And she’s studying for Science Bowl. You don’t need ‘the black girl’ to show up and tell you it’s wrong to have a school where whiteness is the norm and everything else is an exception. I’m telling you and if you keep watch for it, you’ll see it too.”
A confused look passed from Trina to Eve, a rustle in the room as people shifted and didn’t talk. I raised my eyebrows at Jon.
“Kaz is right,” he said. “Like, have you all seen those country flags in the hall?”
Lots of nodding happened, since those flags had been up since the start of the school year three months ago.
“And how there’s Ireland, Germany, Japan, Mexico, and dozens of other countries. But there’s only one flag from Africa and it’s for Ethiopia,” Jon said.
My chest ballooned hollow and big to fit all the pride I had for him. I’d complained about this to him a few weeks ago and he remembered.
“So?” Trina asked.
Jon looked to me, so I said, “Africa has fifty-four countries in it. As far as I know, no one in our school is from Ethiopia. Local African immigrants are mostly from Somalia and Kenya. Plus a lot of our African American students have families from West Africa.”
The blank stares suggested that no one in this room knew the difference between East and West Africa, or why black kids whose family had been in the U.S. for generations would have West African genealog
ies.
I said, “Sure, we don’t know where everyone’s family is from, but they could put up the ten most likely flags along with the Pan-African flag and it would be great.”
“Or just find out where everyone’s family’s from,” Trina suggested.
I opened my mouth, but Jon got there first. “Um, Trina,” he said. “Some people don’t know where their families are from.”
She cocked her head at him. “They could ask.”
“There’s nobody to ask,” I said. “Nobody knows. Slave owners didn’t keep records like that. People didn’t even get to keep their own names, none of the white people in this country cared where they’d come from or who their families were.”
The room got super quiet, the air dense as smoke.
Trina started crying and put her face in her hands. Eve was there in a flash, an arm around her, Sofi on the other side and some of the other girls I didn’t know so well. I heard bits of what Trina was saying, “…so sad…I just feel so bad for these people… can’t imagine what they went through…awful…”
I went into the kitchen to get another pop and get away from all that. Jon came with me.
“So,” he said.
“It’s going to be all about Trina for the rest of the day now.”
“She seems really broken up about it.”
“Yeah maybe, but my mom does that too. Like if I’m watching a show about black history, she’ll sit and cry and talk about ‘those poor people’ and not change a thing about how she treats folks in her day to day. I used to think something was getting through to her, but it’s like she thinks if she gets really upset about it now and then, she’s off the hook. And she still says stupid shit about Aisha and doesn’t realize it.”
“She…what?” Jon’s eyebrows went most of the way to his hairline. “You didn’t tell me that?”
“You want to hear about every time my mom drops some casually racist bullshit?”
“Yes, I actually do.”
“Thanks.”
“You know, you could talk about this more because you’re a badass about it,” he said. “And I don’t know one-fifth of what you do, so start with me. I’d watch some history and not cry. And I won’t even make it about me even though, as a gay, you know that’s one of my God-given skill sets.”
