The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

The Personal Side of Bias, Prejudice, and Oppression

When I was in high school, I joined the concert marching band. We played concert music in the winter, and marched in the summer and fall. Our high school was 90% African American and our faculty was 10% white. Mr. Bell was white and he was our new band director. I witness Mr. Bell being the target of biases and prejudices from the African American students in band class. Out of all the members it was a few who would be disruptive by abruptly shouting out racial remarks, talking back until the director had to send them to the office. Oh, I mean they were just cutting up, however, Mr. Bell did not give up on the rest of the members who took pride in the band, because we knew when we went played we represented our school. Most of this was done in the band room and it was like seclusion from the rest of the school.

This diminished equity because, Mr. Bell was never given a fair chance to teach more than he could have due to outburst, not showing respect for his position in the school, and a lack of consideration for the rest of the band members. If Mr. Bell asked them to do something they would always have something disrespectful to say back to him. They did not allow him to be a person; they were trying to demeanor him and ridicule him. Just because he was white did not mean he should not have equity in trying to teach, communicate, and being a human being.

This made me feel very uncomfortable in band class. I was not a follower and did not find this to be amusing at all. My parents and I moved from state to state since my dad was in the military. To this day my memories of my childhood that I hold dear and personal were with white friends. To be honest I probably would have married one of my friends who were white if we had not moved so much. Not because she was white, but because we had each other to talk to and did almost everything together. Her parents knew mine and vice-versa. To this day we still stay in touch by face book. I did intervene every now and then as did others in the band class whenever, we felt they were being too hard on Mr. Bell or preventing us from learning our music with their nonsense.

Several things could have changed this incident into an opportunity for greater equity. Mr. Bell could have requested for those students to be dropped from the class however, he chose not to. Now do not get me wrong about Mr. Bell. He did write demerits for those individuals, sent them to the office, place them in after school detention, and even did not let them participate in some band events; however, he would still let them participate in the band. Now can you imagine being a band director in high-school and you have the same students from the seventh grade to twelfth grade graduation in your class year in and year out? Well, Mr. Bell did and one thing I remember about this incident that I witnessed, Mr. Bell kept his cool, and never gave up on his band class. He ignored the bias remarks and the prejudice that existed in the high-school. It reminds me of a movie that John Belushi was in called “The Substitute.” He played the role of a white substitute teacher in an inner city school where the majority of the students were from diverse backgrounds, and showed him no respect in the classroom or in the school. Some were from broken homes, and some just did not care about the future, however, Mr.Belushi in the movie did not give up on his students.