Black Teachers! Why Don’t You See Me Anymore?
A Poetic Counter Narrative from a Black Girl Pushed Out
What happens when my teacher, the dark chocolate man with skin like my own doesn’t see me anymore!
What happens?
What happens when my black female body has been rendered invisible by the one person designed to notice it!
What happens?
What happens when my teacher, the dark chocolate woman with skin like my own doesn’t see me anymore!
What happens?
What happens when my skin, wrapped in the same rich soil as hers becomes unrecognizable!
What happens?
What happens when my teachers, bodies dipped in the same dark chocolate skin like mine don’t see me anymore!
What happens?
What happens, when my skin becomes the problem in this Black Space, managed by these Black bodies who don’t see me anymore because they have surrendered to Whiteness in search of a solution for a problem that doesn’t exist but that they have found in my body whose skin is wrapped in the rich soils of our African heritage!
What happens?
Does Whiteness force Blackness’ surrender? Has it convinced my Black male and female teachers and school leaders, with bodies whose skin has been dipped in the same dark chocolate as my own but who don’t see me anymore, that I am no longer worth seeing?
Is that what happens?
Does my Black body, wrapped in a blackness as rich as the soils of my African heritage suddenly become...
Too loud!
Too Boistrous!
Too Unapproachable!
Too Angry!
Too Defiant!
Too Aggressive!
Too Naughty!
Too much of a distraction!
The problem! In need of being surveilled!
Is that what happens?
YES!
That’s what happens!
That is what happens when my teachers, and school leaders,
the dark chocolate men and women, with skin like my own, can no longer see me anymore!
On that day, when my teachers, and school leaders, the dark chocolate men and women, with skin like my own, who no longer
saw me anymore, my beautiful Black female body wrapped in skin as rich as the soils of my African heritage was…
Margenalized!
My Voice Silenced!
That’s what happened!
It happened at school!
Slowly at first!
So slow that nobody but me saw it happen!
That’s what happened!
It happened in a Black space, managed by Black bodies whose skin was wrapped in a blackness just as Black as my own Blackness, the one as rich as the soils of my African heritage, and adorning the beautiful bold bodies of my Black male teacher, my Black male Principal, and my Black female Assistant principal…all of them, dark chocolate, with skin like my own, but who didn’t see me anymore!
So my Blackness faded! I gave up! I tried to tell them that it was happening! But they couldn’t see me! Nor could they hear me! Whiteness had reared its evil head and rendered me invisible
And so too had the people designed to see me…
So now,
I am just
another Black Girl, skin wrapped in a blackness as rich as the soils of my African heritage,
body marginalized, voice silenced…
just another Black girl! Pushed Out!
By my teachers! And school leaders!
The dark chocolate men and women with skin like my own, and designed to see me, but who don’t see me anymore!
That’s what happens!