Perfect fit? (Stories of the 80s and 90s #1)

 

I'm out trying to find a job lately. The words "perfect fit" keep ringing in my head like a bell. Its annoying because I never see life as perfect. So why do companies keep putting it in their job listings. 

I came from a situation and time where nothing was perfect you had to make do. I lived my life in misfit groups. My friends were misfits. My situations were never perfect but I always made do. 

My neighborhood from when I was little until now has always been racially mixed. From my earliest times my friends were the rainbow. Eastern Europeans, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Central Americans, Africans etc and I never though any different about any of them. 

My schooling wasn't a perfect fit. I've had all kinds of teachers and I had to deal with it. Great teachers that pushed you and made you better, to indifferent teachers who were here to work and wasn't going to put more into it that the job description said. Lastly, teachers who seem to act as road blocks, that would bring in personal thoughts and feelings and manage their classrooms like that. 

I had one of those in the 5th grade. Its been so long I don't remember her name. But she was a white lady that would do strange things. We were lining up to go anywhere, lunch, home what ever. She would say we needed to be quiet and behave and she would call us. At first me and some other black friends were always at the back of the line always getting called last. So we talked and decided to be quiet and see if we could get called earlier. Didn't matter we were quieter than other people she called before us.

Now to give you a more area overview of the situations this is how we realized she would call people. White girls first, then white boys, then spanish girls, then spanish boys, then black girls and lastly black boys. Again no matter how we acted we were always last. 

Even in academics we were treated differently. By opinions of others I'm an intelligent person. Things came easy to me academically. There was no subject that gave me issues. But I knew I passed those mastery learning reading tests. Later I had to prove it but I seem to be failing which didn't seem possible. After the situation I'm going to describe below. I showed the paper work from my test and assignments to prove that I wasn't failing. 

So one day we were going downstairs and the teacher were mumbling something. We heard the words niggers and wet backs. We looked at each other. My friend Ali said he is going to tell his dad. I said I'm gonna tell my grandmother and my other classmates said they were gonna tell their parents. 

It wasn't coordinated but all of our parents showed up to talk to the principal about this. I don't know the details of what happened but the next day we talked into the class to Ms Bruce being out teacher. 

They never told us what happened probably because the didn't feel we could understand, we did. We were happy that we effected change. a small group of male black and spanish kids fix something that needed to be fixed. 

It always stuck with me. Its probably the reason for some of the future posts I will do to bring an understanding great work comes from collaborative efforts from people who may not be a perfect fit, but come together to make things work. 

I'll post every week with the title "Stories of the 80s and 90s" A lot of these stories haven't been told in years. A lot of them are only known by the people involved or the few people I told. It needs to be said. See you guys next time.