|
|
||
What Black History Month Means to Me: Seeing both sides as a biracial woman Date published: 2/14/2009
BY LIANE DiSTEFANO
FOR THE FREE LANCE-STAR WHEN I WAS a student My classmates and I had just finished performing a "poetry theater," for which we recited poetic works of our choosing and interpreted the poetry through short skits. I was one of two biracial students in the class, and there were perhaps three other black students, and we all interpreted the works of black poets. When the entire class had presented, our instructor gave his assessment of the class's efforts, and he commented--not maliciously, but expressing a surprise that I found peculiar and offensive--"Every single one of the black students chose black poets." "So what!" I exclaimed in my head. Why was it really necessary to point out that all the nonwhite students had chosen to recognize nonwhite poets? Did the instructor find it necessary to mention that most white students chose white poets for the project? What if a black child walked into his elementary school classroom and said, after looking at a carefully assembled bulletin board his teacher may have put together in recognition of Presidents Day, "There sure are I can't say for certain how many elementary school teachers have experienced that, but I'll go out on a limb and say very few, if any, have heard a black child comment on all the white faces he or she would see on a bulletin board of past presidents, and this is because the black child is used to seeing images of white faces reflected. A scan of the newsstands at the local bookstore demonstrates this. White models grace the covers of most fashion magazines. I rarely see the homes of black families featured in the home-decorating publications I love to read. And someone in Hollywood is always decrying the shortage of meaty roles for black actors that aren't modeled
Date published: 2/14/2009
1. Be respectful. No personal attacks.
|
|
|||||||||||||||
