unlearning with anytown
My daughter came home from high school yesterday with an application for ANYTOWN. ANYTOWN is a week-long leadership program for youth. As she showed me the application last night she asked, “Am I ready?” My immediate response was a resounding “yes”, but I found myself this morning unpacking my immediate and passionate affirmation.
Having grown up in the segregated towns of southern Michigan in the wake of the infamous Detroit riots (summer of 1967), I wanted my children to grow up with fewer stereotypes and less fear. Before my children started elementary, we intentionally moved to a racially diverse city and to church committed to inclusivity. I wanted my children to grow up delighting in God’s diverse creation.
Our first home in St. Louis was on an integrated block and we cherished the friendships our preschool aged children made in the neighborhood. Although we quickly discovered that the diversity we assumed existed in St. Louis was an illusion, our own little corner of the world was precious. The neighbors across the road told tales of “block busting” in the 1960’s when as African Americans they moved into the then all-white neighborhood. An added bonus was that my neighbor’s daughter (my age) and grandson (my daughter’s age) were living with her while building a new home. Our children became fast friends and spent many happy hours together.
Unfortunately, we moved from that neighborhood about the time my children started school. All too quickly, my utopian ideals for my children were shattered. One of the ironies of public education is that we often choose public schools believing that they will enable our children to live more respectfully in a diverse world. I continue to be amazed, however, at how segregated an integrated public school can be. Without anyone intending it, our schools end up being one more venue in our children’s lives reinforcing unhelpful stereotypes and destructive patterns.
ANYTOWN is a week-long summer intensive led by NCCJ (The National Conference for Community and Justice) for youth to “explore and address the complexities of critical issues of discrimination such as race, sex, sexual orientation, class, age, physical ability, and religious oppression.” In short, a chance to unlearn the racism and classism that she has already learned. My daughter’s readiness for ANYTOWN is an appropriate question, but not the one to which I was responding.
The underlying assumption about our children’s need for the experience is for me the more critical point. Tragically the assumption is correct. Children are not born racist, but when born into a world permeated by racism the results are inevitable. So too with classism, heterosexism, and an endless list of prejudices. Despite our best intentions, the world in which we live is permeated by the bigotry that from which we would shelter our children. Allowing our children to embrace the world in which we live is unwittingly also enabling another generation to learn things which will need to be unlearned.
Is she ready? Yes, but more important is the realization that she can’t afford not to be.