Thinking about a book that saved me

Today would have been Anne Frank's 91st birthday. On this day in 1942, Anne receives her first, red-checked diary for her 13th birthday. 'Maybe one of my nicest presents…' she wrote. What does the diary of Anne Frank mean to you these days? #annefrank #diary #onthisday pic.twitter.com/nkAu1kb1Rs

— Anne Frank House (@annefrankhouse) June 12, 2020

Buried deep within me is this fear that the day will come when I wouldn’t be allowed to read whatever I want. 

This is not because of recent cancelling of shows to perform solidarity against an ugly past (Op-Ed: I don’t like ‘Gone With the Wind,’ but I hate to see Hattie McDaniel canceled). This is not because I am opposed to see the awful show, COPS, which stereotyped law enforcement and people, especially Black people, go. (Albeit, the show always involved people breaking some law; the only show I ever watched was someone speeding and not pulling over). 

But it might be because  a UCLA professor is suspended after refusing to exempt black students from taking their final exam as requested by their “non-black allies”; I can share instances upon instances where expressing a view that offers nuance (it’s not even an opposing view point, but an additional fact) can cost you your job at the very institutions that are supposed to encourage debate and critical thinking. For example, a black person expressing that George Floyd was murdered but he is not a martyr, can be “cancelled” and labelled a racist; it doesn’t matter if he or she is black themselves. 

I have written about this before, but I will quickly mention it again: when I was younger and my family was “stuck” in the Middle East, books had to be smuggled in. If the Religious Police decided to toss something, out it went. Moreover, the Religious Police would also do “rounds” in people’s houses to make sure they were attending prayers at a mosque, especially during Ramadan. My father wasn’t. I was always afraid that “they” would come and take away my father any day. This is a book in itself so I won’t get into it now. To sum it up, I grew up with the fear that we were always doing something wrong, about to be charged with some crime we didn’t commit, and will be provided no due process. 

I read Anne Frank’s dairy the summer between 8th and 9th grade. It was a summer when I was debating whether life was worth living. I was in a dark place. With both parents working beyond full time and me being the eldest, I had little time for self-pity or acting upon my dark thoughts. I was too responsible. 

My family, new immigrants, had relocated from New York City to a suburb of Kansas City, Kansas. After living in Saudia Arabia, New York City was an exhale that didn’t end. In NYC I had friends: friends from Singapore and Romania, friends who were Black, friends who were Greek, friends who were boys and friends who were girls, friends whose parents worked at grocery stores and friends who had parents in Broadway shows. It was Stuyvesant Town at its very best. Many of my “neighborhood friends,” as compared to those in my school, were Jewish. Also, I wasn’t dependent on my parents to drive me anywhere in New York City. 

Compare this to Kansas. I didn’t grow up with the people who had been friends with one another since they were in elementary schools. I was restricted until I would turn the legal age for driving. It took me a very long time to realize it wasn’t just that I was not white but that I wasn’t from Kansas that made me an outsider. I was also exceptionally well-read compared to my peers in Kansas. I had been on a famous T.V. show for children when I was in New York. There were many layers to what made me stand out, and I don’t exclude my cultural background or skin color from it. Now that I am a teacher, I always keep a look out for kids who are “different” no matter their skin color or background. 

It was a summer of no friends. I had gone from having the best life (according to a twelve-year-old’s view: ice-skating with my very diverse friends in Central Park) to a death-sentence (now I know EVERY kid who has had to move and leave friends behind thinks it’s a brutal plan by the parents to punish your existence). 

It was a long walk to the public library which was next to the local pool. If we were dropped there, we stayed there for at least half a day. 

One very humid summer day, I asked a librarian if we were allowed to go to “that section.” “That section” consisted of non-fiction books for adults and I had spotted a book on display that had piqued my interest. The librarian replied, it’s a library; you can go anywhere you want. I looked through books about religion and suicide. They were too difficult to understand. I still remember the moment, when an hour later, the librarian, an older woman, came up to me and said, “Have you read this?” It was The Diary of Anne Frank. I was sold simply because it was a diary. There was no “social justice” curriculum that came with it, there were no class discussions, there were no essays or multiple choice questions to answer. Moreover, I had NO context for the book. And yet that book SAVED a very lonely girl who was constantly bullied and had to make sure her younger siblings weren’t bullied too. My experiences were different than my brothers because I was a girl. A young woman of any skin color will always be more acceptable compared to a young brown man. Regardless, I remained invisible for a very long time but knowing Anne Frank made me feel less alone. 

My first real friend in Kansas came a year after that summer. She was my neighbor and although she was “darker” than me (actually, looking back on it, I think we were the same shade—Kansas sun is no joke!), I had no idea she was “Black”. I didn’t become friends with her to have an “exotic experience” nor she with me. We were neighbors and both could use a friend who understood what the other was going through. She wasn’t going to be my last Black friend, the only person through whom I would understand Black America.  I would go on to have a variety since most of my white friends couldn’t understand—not racism—but PAIN. Specifically, the pain of being displaced. I did have a group of white girlfriends in Kansas and I never felt “othered” by them even though I felt there was much they didn’t know about me or my culture or how different my family was even within my own culture. The “othering” didn’t happen until City College in New York City at a graduate program. The “othering” has always happened at elite, liberal institutions. 

So when I saw Anne Frank’s birthday trending on the cesspool that’s Twitter, I thought about a time when I was saved. Quite literally. Although I didn’t know as much about the Holocaust then as I would later (looking back on it, does anyone remember anything from any high school history? What a lost opportunity to make learning meaningful!), it shaped my worldview. The fact that she had to hide and write is how I had lived prior to our arrival in the U.S. due to my father’s religious and political affiliations (then and now). The fact that she could have a crush on a boy as the world was falling apart showed me love is stronger than the sun. The fact that people have to hide because of who they are so as not to be murdered never left me. The only persecution I had experienced was through the Religious Police after my father. 

It’s important to note that the racism and sexism I have experienced haven’t always stood in the way of me accomplishing goals. My father and mother have. Every time I have been denied a position or role, it’s because the institution DOESN’T WANT CHANGE, they want a token. They will put a young brown woman who will not disrupt the status quo over someone like me every day. This is to say that I have met ignorant people and had racist encounters but they haven’t always disadvantaged me and the inverse is true too: I have experienced more sexism than racism when it comes to opportunities. 

I know many different people who come from many different walks of life so I don’t speak on behalf of anyone. I recall this one beautiful Black woman in law school who one day confessed to me that she is so angry all the time because she has nothing to be angry about. She was young, had a rock on her hand that weighed her hand down, and she grew up in immense privilege. I told her all she had to do was take a look around, injustice was everywhere. But she couldn’t see herself beyond how she thought others saw her and felt she had a role to play instead of an authentic commitment to doing something for others. 

Also in law school, we used to have a program called Third World Empowerment. It was a head-start program that was three weeks long. It was for those students who didn’t come from privileged backgrounds. These students didn’t have a lawyer in the family or connections in law firms or law offices. These students didn’t go to Ivy league for undergrad. These students even had part-time jobs. I was in that program and it was the first time I felt empowered. I was surrounded by intelligent people not defined by our lack as per a dominant narrative but our wealth of experiences. And most importantly, differences amongst us were allowed. We were not all black and brown. This was Queens, New York, after all. They were Americans but their families were from Poland, Ukraine, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and India and elsewhere. Of course, a few were there because they too wanted a booster program despite the fact that they were privileged; so, they too were allowed. Now, I can’t recall if there was a push-back against this and that’s why it dissolved or because no one wanted to carry on the task? I think too much fighting amongst those in charge as to what it meant to be part of Third World or maybe it was the word Empowerment. I can’t remember. Like all great things with best of intentions, lost to someone’s ego. 

***

And here we are: Covid-19 to Economy Hanging by a Thread to Protests to Destructive, Violent Lootings. 

Asking—is it okay to protest when people are supposed to be social distancing? —shouldn’t be dangerous. Shouldn’t invite threats. Shouldn’t imply you don’t care about injustices. 

Worse is asking: well, if people have been protesting “with masks” (how good is a bandana-mask if your face is inches from another’s?) and if there have been no increases in the cases since the protests (or have there? Where? Do we trust the source?), what does that mean? 

Black and white friends should have the right to express they don’t think Floyd is a hero although he was murdered. Saying you don’t want to defund the police shouldn’t mean you don’t want police reform. 

People should be allowed to write op-eds that many may not agree with and people should rebut those op-eds. We shouldn’t fire editors over it and replace them with children who only know one view, their view. 

Anne Frank’s birthday today took me back to a time when my family and I lived in fear of expressing ourselves. No one should feel silenced. If you don’t like what someone has to say, you can “mute” them, “unfollow” them, “block” them. Apparently, sadly, we can do this off Social Media and in real life to our own families too now because we have made everything as if it is our identity. This is the sad part. The scary bit is that there are people in charge who are controlling the narrative and you are helpless against it. 

I have found myself crying uncontrollably the last few days because of what’s going on. Although I would rather feel sad for however long I need to feel sad, eventually anger bubbles up. It’s been exhausting.  And it’s not for the reasons you may think. 

I actually had a friend say, “Do we even know if Floyd is a criminal? If he was, CNN would have reported it.” The list of crimes committed is all over many verifiable sources and yet this friend can’t see beyond their hate for the current President. 

You may prefer a different president, but without a functional Congress, his or her hands are tied. Is that what we want? Who is your local representative? Who in your city can you hold accountable for who gets what amounts of money? Who is on your school boards? If you can’t voice your concerns at your school board meetings, good luck with thinking that a vote for a single man or a single woman will change things. 

I understand wanting a sitting President out of office but do you really want it at the cost of what looks like Pakistan? India? And if you believe (and I believe you) it has been that bad already for a long time, then do you want worse—Saudia Arabia? 

More and more people want a father-figure who is Trump or a father-figure who is Obama. Who would I like to have a beer with? That’s what’s going to decide our democracy? 

***

Maybe similar to the after-math of 9-11, where people for the first time were asking: what is Islam? I thought Muhammed Ali was Islam or wasn’t it Malcom X? Isn’t Michael Jackson some kind of Islam too? Wait, why are we bombing Afghanistan, again? Wait, we are still there? Wait, you are Muslim and you drink—so there is more than one type of Muslim? 

Maybe this is a time for white people who have never ever thought about anything because they had “one black friend in their law firm or accounting firm” to ask some serious questions. 

But because we all have to live together, this is a time for black communities to ask themselves some questions as well. 

And Indian and Pakistani communities need to stop with their bullshit hypocrisy. Posting Black Lives Matter stickers on their social media posts while secretly praying their son or daughter doesn’t marry a black person! Saying “Defund the Police” when they live in the most expensive gated communites. Bollywood movie stars postings slogans of solidarity as they get paid millions of dollars for “skin lightening” creams. 

And if you are a white person who has NEVER been aware, whose family has NO RECORD of helping black people in this country, who has NEVER really had close friends from another culture, stop apologizing and GET OVER YOURSELF AND GET TO WORK. Stop thinking Obama was your friend; talk to that person who “looks Hispanic but maybe she is Black.” 

***

Most importantly, what are we teaching our children? Who are their idols? Oprah? Obama? Beyoncé? Jay-Z? 

What do their idols reflect? For example, in Pakistan and India, it’s common to find children saying, “I want to be Shah Rukh Khan when I grow up.” People worship the Bollywood movie stars because they are gods who will never answer, so they can continue as they were without taking any personal responsibility for their own lives. 

In the beginning of the school year, I always have my students write me a handwritten letter. It has several prompts. I give them my hand-written letter too. One prompt asks, If you could have someone be a substitute teacher for one day and teach our class, who would you choose and why. Depending on the year, I choose my sister or my father or my mother or my sister-in-law etc. and I list the reasons. 

I have done this enough times to make the following observations from memory. My students who write the following:

• “I would have my father be a substitute for a day. He is a plumber and he knows how to fix things. We can learn a lot from someone who knows how to fix things…” or
•  “I would like my mother as a substitute because she bakes on the weekends and I know that’s not Language Arts but she would make us all feel so good…” or
•  “I would like my older brother to teach because he always takes time to explain things and is so helpful…” or 
• “I would like my grandpa to teach us because he like knows everything there is to know!”

have one thing in common—LOVE. Someone in their family loves them, pays attention to them, and they come to school to learn. 

I have some ambitious students who will write, I would have Nikola Tesla teach us…or I would have Ed Dwight teach us…clearly, their parents have very different discussions at home.  

My students who write, I would have Beyoncé or that YouTube star or some other famous basketball player come in and teach often struggle with a lot of other emotions regardless of how they end up doing academically in my class or others. 

I know this is painful to hear. 

There is so much to say and so much to hear. For now, I will leave you with this thought by writer and blogger Minna Salami. Minna and I have known each other for many years and I don’t always see eye-to-eye on all her conclusions, but we usually agree on the premise of her arguments. This, I agree with 100%. 

It is important to see when personal trauma is masquerading as political struggle. True transformation is equally inward as it is outward.

— Minna Salami (@minnasalami) June 12, 2020

I tweeted what follows when the lootings began but I want it here on my blog to look back at it years from now (if I am even allowed to keep this blog). 

You know how in relationships and families, people fight not about the actual issue but “Who put that there?” or “You keep moving this!” etc. and it’s perpetual and draining and awful and it never gets resolved…because the real issue is NEVER addressed? That’s America. 

I thought America would burn before talking about class. It’s burning and… nope. The “new manifest destiny” concept is SO deeply engrained. “In the simplest interpretation Manifest Destiny expressed the American version of an age-old yearning for improvement, change, and growth.” (David S. Heidler Jeanne T. Heidler, Britannica.com) 

Maybe because I am a teacher who feels like a soldier does on good days—winning a battle in  an invisible war against poverty, emotional neglect by parents, addiction, abuse, lack of resources, incompetent districts, untrained teachers *with their* Masters, Silicon Valley apps for learning, corporations running Education through standardized testing and enforcing agendas for a profit margin—and that’s how I know: YOU DON’T LEAVE ANYONE BEHIND.

Any nation anywhere built on leaving people behind will have to deal with the consequences. That’s just natural law. 

Education is the only way to turn things around and we can’t. Failed system yields too high a profit. Sometimes the profit looks like dollars and other times it looks like apathy and not voting. 

As far as I am concerned, if you don’t know what’s going on in a school district just because your child has Straight-As and plays sports or violin or because you don’t have children or because “Thank God! My child is no longer in school!”, you are complicit. YOU.DON’T.LEAVE.ANYONE.BEHIND. You fight for other children’s education like you would for your own. 

And unless we can create a culture where people have (care to make?) the time, the leisure, the compassion, to worry about other people’s children, nothing will change. 

Policies are made and implemented at the LOCAL level. It’s local policies that get challenged by a group of dedicated people which reach the Supreme Court. 

Burning buildings will not stop the consumer economy culture or change policies. BUT we need an educated populace to understand that. So we are back to square one.