Kindergarten wars

Gorny Family 1989

Left to Right: Romanós, Anastasía carrying Christopher and resting arm on Andrew, Jacob with Johnny in front of him, Grandpa Gorny (aka Roman Senior)

It’s funny how when people have decided that they hate you, anything you say or do will draw down censure and rebuke from them.

When we first moved back to the States from Canada our second son was enrolled in kindergarten for the first time in a racially mixed school (Irvington, photo above), where the mix was about 50/50 between Blacks and Non-blacks, and where the teachers were Black. Never having seen Black children or adults at close range before (we had been living in Vancouver, B.C., in an East Indian neighborhood) Andrew hadn’t yet learned what is okay and what is not okay to say when you talk to them. Sure, people usually call each other by name, but boys will be boys, and kids sometimes call each other names instead, especially when they are having a problem with someone.

Well, one morning Andrew had a problem with a fellow student and called him a “little black baby,” in the hearing of one of the teachers. He didn’t use the “N word” because he had probably never heard it. We had never used that word, neither when I was growing up, nor when I was raising my own family. That went back to my grandfather Casimir (photo, right), who was kicked out of ‘white society’ when he first arrived from Europe and settled in the Florida panhandle because he did not call his black employees by the usual name, and he refused to pay them half of what he paid his white employees; he paid everyone the same. That was too much for the first decade of the 1900’s in that part of the country. He was forced to move to the North.

Back to the kindergarten wars…

So Andrew was sent home with a note that we had to come in and have a talk with the teachers before they would readmit him to the class. Why? Because he was obviously from a racially prejudiced home, and his parents would have to be reprimanded and instructed to apologise and repent of our racism. That was patently absurd. Not only were we not racists with anti-African prejudices, but we were instead quite interested in and even partly integrated with African culture. Andrew and his brothers all wore Ethiopian silver crosses around their necks, being Orthodox children, and our closest Orthodox neighbors were an Eritrean family just around the corner, with whom all of us spent a great deal of time.

Well, when we confronted the teachers with these facts, they were not even aware of the African culture we were integrated with, and insisted that we discipline and correct Andrew and forbid him to call anyone a “black baby” again. Then they advised us to be progressive and affirmative of our Black neighbors. Duh, weren’t they listening to anything we said? I guess not. It’s funny how when people have decided that you hate them, anything you say or do won’t please them. But it makes me wonder, just who is hating who?

And ‘the beat goes on,’ that is, the beat of war drums, people vigilantly on the lookout for a racial slur or anything they can take the wrong way, proving that you hate their kind. But again I ask, who is hating who?

As a Spanish speaker I feel no threat from the Hispanic culture or Spanish-speaking people; in fact, I love and appreciate both. When I go into my favorite Mexican restaurant (sign, left) I don’t even speak English at all, and I usually read Spanish magazines left there by others while I have my lunch. The señora who usually takes my order is always happy to see me and tries to guess what I'll be ordering each time. “Hola, un burrito chili relleno para ti?”
“Si, señora, y quisiera una horchata mediana con hielo también, por favor!”

The gradual hispanization of America is a fact, but that I mention it or use it as an example of how social and economic forces cause the replacement of one population group by another is seen by some as a form of racism. My personal feeling is that America is an Anglo country, and that every new immigrant group, no matter how numerous, still has to learn the English language and fit in. Their national cultures don’t have to be taken from them, but they are expected to assimilate to the same degree that all their predecessors have when they came to America, and I think that most of them would agree with me.

But when people have decided that they hate you, anything you say or do will draw down censure and rebuke from them.

ηυλησαμεν υμιν, και ουκ ωρχησασθε, εθρηνησαμεν υμιν, και ουκ εκοψασθε…
… και εδικαιωθη η σοφια απο των τεκνων αυτης!

We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we mourned to you, and you did not lament…
…but wisdom is justified by her children.
Matthew 11:17, 19 NKJV