I stared down the barrel of the gun wordlessly, not so much out of fear, but sheer confusion due to the substantial amount of aging that had just taken place in my mind. At this situation, I’d just become dumbfounded with the realization that a simple impulse had given a ten-year-old the power of God- the power of life and death- and that a simple impulse on either side carried with it the potential to render my own experience, which was ten years in the making as well, nonexistent, and that it would take less than a fraction of a second to do so.
As rational thought once again began to shine through the dense fog of confusion, anger, and the entertainment of countless hypothetical outcomes to this situation, it occurred to me that I was only in the crossfire and that the potential bullet’s true target was sitting to my immediate left. This should have been a relief if only a slight one, it was not.
If anything, I was insulted. The first insult came with the thought that we all ended up in this situation in the first pace, that a conflict between elementary school children- a conflict that wouldn’t otherwise matter in time- had come to a head in this manner. It was even more insulting to think that if my life were to end here, it would only be as a consequence of proximity to the actual target. I wasn’t even an afterthought. However, perhaps the most insulting, was the fact that we had just become conduits for energies over which we had no authority. From this instant on, we were no longer children. We weren’t even people. We were objects of utility. And we were soon to become statistics.
After dissuading the boy from shooting my friend, I “snitched” for the first and only time in my entire life, quietly notifying the oblivious school-bus driver of the situation as I got off at my stop. Being a child, I didn’t realize the true gravity of our situation. I understood life and death, but I didn’t understand the more complex nature of the self-perpetuating cycle of which we’d just become inducted.
Maybe I should have seen it coming earlier than I did. The hints were always there. Two years prior, I’d been suspended from school for the first time for giving a teacher a “threatening look.” How an eight-year-old can threaten an adult with a look, I still struggle to understand. A year after the events on the bus, I had to result to using my fists for the first time in middle school, getting into an altercation with an older student who often resorted to violence- the most tangible manifestation of our collective feelings of inadequacy and consequential attempts at ascertaining some form of control- in which I irresponsibly left the boy wounded on the floor of the vacant bathroom, neglecting to notify anyone of authority out of fear of the trouble that may have awaited, even in the case of me defending myself. As I reflected on the situation, I remembered the look on the boy’s face. That same look, that glint of hope, achieved by some form of validation, twinkled in the eyes of the boy with the gun a year earlier. Maybe both of the boys thought that if they couldn’t earn that validation though achievement and acceptance, they would be able to do it through fear.
A year after that, I’d been sent out of the class by my white teacher for not pledging allegiance to the flag. When chastised, id explained to her that I’d began to question the ubiquitous application of the principles enumerated in the pledge, almost as much as I questioned the god to which the pledge alluded.
This singular event led to a substantially long list of disciplinary violations on my part, often perpetrated to the detriment of nobody, with the exception of teachers and figures of authority who felt that I was too “uppity” in an environment of “learning.”
In this place of expected compliance without question, of informational regurgitation without application, and of routine without purpose who was I to see myself as anything other than an object of potential utility, as anything more than a number or potential statistic, just like everybody else.
This brings me to today.
With as much as I love my people, with as much strength, talent, intelligence, and influence that never ceases to amaze me, with our unparalleled ability to make the best out of a bad situation, we can often be frustratingly paradoxical, sometimes to the point of hypocrisy.
Much our collective existence has been ruled by fear, and rightfully so. Yet this fear often comes at the detriment of our natural divinity, as we learn to accept things as they are, for fear of losing what we have. For example, we don’t generally trust the institutions of government and law enforcement for historically accurate reasons, yet we voice content with the “get out and vote” consensus, no matter how complacent or antithetical to our struggle. We understand that we were indoctrinated with certain mentalities at the end of a whip, and yet we continue to pass those mentalities onto our youth. We constantly criticize the system of education in this country and seem to have arrived at the general consensus that it was never designed for us, and yet we continue to judge ourselves and others by its standards.
I can’t count the number of times it was stressed to me the importance of “getting an education” so I could “make something” of myself, as if the content of one’s character and the value of one’s existence is determined by the validation of an experience created by some white man, overseen by some white man, about white men, and for white men.
Need proof of this reasoning? Count the number of times you’ve heard blacks, indigenous, Latinos, and women complain about their lack of representation in the narratives of this country’s history, especially given how instrumental we’ve been in respect to that history.
From a standpoint of everyday practicality, I can’t count the number of times I’ve found myself at the mercy of police, thinking that a rudimentary education about constitutionality and my legal rights would have been more pertinent in everyday life than a mandatory trigonometry course. So if “education” doesn’t teach one how to be a conscious and cognitive member of society, what purpose does it serve?
I can’t count the number of times I’ve returned home from college to catch up with old friends, only to be heartbroken by the realization that the people I once knew had ceased to exist. The prodigal artistic and musical abilities they once exhibited, the happiness and optimism they once exuded, and the dreams they once spoke of with their eyes glossed over had been replaced with an unfulfilled life of simply being content, of low self-esteem, and of questionable mental health, all attributed to their inability to fit the mold of a system that failed them.
The irony in all this is that in all of their previous reluctance to aspire to be objects of utility, most of them had presently settled into those exact stations out of some perceived shortage of options due to their previous “failures.” Their potentials had been depleted by a societal need for conformity. Now when we spoke, it wasn’t the light of optimism that shined in their eyes, but the familiar glint of hope for validation that would never be given.
And even for those of us that have gone off to college to further our “education,” the outcome is similar, except maybe more lucrative in many cases. It’s ironic, actually; The New Jim Crow is a must-read that goes into depth about the modern-day slavery of the black American in pertinence to the penal system, where we are assigned numbers and designated as objects of utility. The irony is that this form of slavery is often attributed to our history of economic slavery. And as most people know, there’s a correlation between economics and education.
In respect to the idea of economic, slavery from a personal standpoint, I presently find myself in my senior year of college, having paid thousands of dollars over the last four years (despite having scholarships) and being forced to pay hundreds more for a single capstone class that is mandatory for graduation. On top of this, it also turns out that the fees each student has to pay in the class are responsible for covering the fees the university has to pay to renew its accreditation, along with the grades we are expected to earn. Against all odds, having “successfully” made my way out of the city, out of high school, and through higher “education,” I find myself still an object of utility and being assigned a (student ID) number. It didn’t take a degree for me to be able to connect the dots.
Epilog: If you’ve read this far, thank you. I recognize the sacrifices that have been made, not only for my right to an education but also to my right to complain. As such, I understand that my position is one of privilege and that for many people, an “education” is the key to prosperity. Therefore, I don’t profess to want to destroy the system, nor do I even profess to have an adequate answer as to how to change it. However, I do understand that as black people, it is important to never stop questioning, being critical, and creating open dialogues as a productive way to express concerns and exchange ideas. With this, I hope at least that much has been accomplished.
