Class discrimination among black students
Brown recalls learning about her students' psyches through their after-class gossip. She shares an example that she believes reveals the class discrimination within the African American community.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Elizabeth Brown, June 17, 2005. Interview U-0019. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- KIMBERLY HILL:
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If we use that case as an example, how do you think you would've handled
it differently if some of those kids had been black or Hispanic?
- ELIZABETH BROWN:
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The ones that said it or-
- KIMBERLY HILL:
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Yeah, the ones who said it.
- ELIZABETH BROWN:
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Hispanic against their own group.
- KIMBERLY HILL:
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It's possible.
- ELIZABETH BROWN:
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I would, if it had been like an Hispanic kid, I would say how could you
possibly make fun of anyone or say something against someone that's your
own heritage. That's, I would relate it to that.
Sometimes the black students here have made fun of other blacks. It's
the idea if I make it, anybody can make it. I try to, that's not
necessarily true. You have, there are certain circumstances that are,
it's just like someone two people who are very good in acting and one
becomes a star because they just happens to be in the right place at the
right time. The other person doesn't. He's teaching drama in some high
school at much less money. So I would not allow, occasionally I've had
students make fun of what they would consider lazy blacks or low income
whatever and say it's their own fault and so on. I will, very seldomly
is it in a classroom situation. It's after school situations that they
sometimes, not ever year, but sometimes you get a group that hangs out
in your classroom for about five or ten minutes as a meeting room, and
you'll hear a lot more than you'll ever heard in class. I remember a few
years back the, there was a group of about six or eight blacks. There
were some whites in with them but mostly and for some, they had their
lockers there after school, and they came back after school and told me
about whatever, things. Most of the time it wasn't significant, but they
didn't like any of the black boys. They didn't know who to
go-. Six of them decided to go to the prom together. They
weren't interested in dates. They were going with these girls, and they
rented a motel room afterwards because they were going to gossip about
everybody that was there. They admitted they were going to have a lot of
fun gossiping, making fun of the other people who went to the prom,
which I thought was great because I don't think proms are all that great
anyway. But anyway, I said well, why don't you take, why don't you go
with some of the boys. I mentioned the black boys at the school. Oh no.
He can't do such and such. Oh no, he can't-. Have you ever
seen his car and dadadadada. All this stuff like that. Just they seemed
nice to me, but they had something against every
single one of them. I brought up about five or six of them.
Then-
- KIMBERLY HILL:
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Was it all about them not having nice enough cars?
- ELIZABETH BROWN:
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Well, or something like that. That kind of thing, he doesn't speak well.
He's crude. He's sort of like too rough around the edges. That kind of
stuff. I began to realize later in this particular-. I was
mentioning some that I just knew. I hadn't had them in class especially,
but they were athletes and stuff at the time. I began to realize later
that I think these girls, these particular girls were of a different
class of blacks than the boys. I think the boys were of the blue-collar
type parents, and the girls were of a professional families. I began to
realize that even within the African American community there were, I
should have known it ahead. Obviously I should've known it because of my
background is a lot in sociology. I thought I'd be a social worker, and
I lacked a two-credit class of becoming a social worker, and I thought
I'd teach for a while and get that and become, and decided I liked
teaching. But I didn't realize that there's some prejudice of blacks
against blacks, and it was that group that did not bridge it. Now I
suspect that these boys that were of this class, I suspect that they
went into college and got a career. I think these girls would look at
them differently, which frequently high school kids that won't even look
at each other, they find out that they're not the kids aren't cool
enough that they want. Later on in college they tend to realize how
stupid that is and-. But I suspect some of these boys probably
were a little rough around the edges because they came from blue collar
families. I, I don't know too much about it but I began to recall some
of these girls had been in my Spanish IV class that was about
half-and-half. I thought that's the way, the English that they use and
they talk about their parents, they are
professional, kids of professionals, and these other boys I suspect they
do use poor English and they do whatever. They're probably not of that.
But I, I thought well, college is going to cure that pretty soon. They
were seniors at the time, and they'll, but it was just sort of a bit of
an eye opener to me. One of our teachers here that was, this is, last
year was the first year she hadn't taught here. She's gone into the
business world. At the time she was obviously of a very high class as
far as her English is concerned, and she was very fastidious about her
dress and everything. There were a couple that I had in fourth year
Spanish, and one of them I had in AP government. The only boy she
considered was-in her high school, a black boy she considered
dating. She herself was black-was what I would call a son of a
professional person. The others, she wouldn't have anything to do with
at that time. She was crazy about this kid. I don't think he ever knew
that the extent it was, how crazy she was about him. It would've been a
beautiful match if I could have just gotten them together.