Renée Watson - A Time to Speak

 

 

I grew up in Oregon. [chuckles] My house, my school, my church were all nestled and nurtured in the Black community of Northeast Portland. It felt like everybody knew each other. We were always seeing each other, whether it was at church or school or at a community gathering. One of my favorite gatherings was the annual celebration for Martin Luther King's birthday that would happen at Jefferson High School. The whole neighborhood would flood the auditorium at Jeff and there would be an all-day festival to celebrate his life. 

 

Now, to understand the significance of this festival, you need to know that in my neighborhood, we loved Martin Luther King Jr. [audience chuckle] He was taught to us the most in school as an activist and a leader of the civil rights movement. At church, his face was on some of the fans that we would [audience chuckle] fan ourselves with. Some of our grandparents had his picture framed and hanging in their living room, as if he was a family member. And in school, we would argue about who would get to read the paragraph that would tell about his life in our history books. So, he was special to us. 

 

And this celebration was epic. African dancers, poetry performances, theater performances, there would be people reciting his speeches and always a call to action. Somebody would always say, “We have to keep living the dream. Use your voice for something good, stand up against injustice.” And as a kid, I didn't think that they were really talking to me. That stuff was for the adults. But in the fifth grade, my teacher taught us that we didn't have to wait till we were adults to use our voice for something good. 

 

There had been a tragedy in our community. She came to class with tears in her eyes. It was the middle of November, right before Thanksgiving, and she told the class that an Ethiopian man had been killed. He had been killed by skinheads. His name was Mulugeta Seraw. She told us that they beat him with a baseball bat so bad that the bat split in half. When she says this, Jennifer, the only white girl in the classroom, says, "Wow, he must have had a hard head," and she laughs. None of us Black kids think this is funny, and neither does our teacher. She takes her into the hallway. I don't know what she says, but when Jennifer comes back in, she sits down and takes out her notebook. Our teacher has asked us to write a letter or a poem or make art and we're going to give this as a gift to the family.

 

So, we stuff our handwritten condolences in this wicker basket that's full of fruit and food. I don't know why, I was one of the students selected to go with our teacher to take this gift. I was proud and I felt special, like my voice was doing something, my poem was going to mean something. We brought this gift, and the person at the door thanked us. But it was very clear that they really had nothing to be thankful for. So much pain and sorrow in their eyes. I was frustrated and disappointed, because what was the point of doing this if we weren't going to make it better? 

 

I asked my teacher, like, “Why did you make us do this? Nothing has changed.” And she was like, “Well, it's not about that. It was never about changing anything or making them feel better. It was about letting them know that their son and their father would never be forgotten. It was about standing up to a hate crime, to an injustice, and adding our voice to the chorus that this is not right.” It was about doing what artists and poets do,” she said. “Artists and poets respond.” And so, I thought about this in the weeks to come. There was Thanksgiving, and then we went on our winter break to celebrate the holidays. 

 

I kept thinking about what she said about art responding to injustice and our voices mattering, being important. When we come back to school, my teacher is not there. She's taken a leave of absence, because her husband is ill. And so, now, we have a new teacher. And this teacher is opposite of her in every way. This teacher is a man. He's white, and he never has us write poems. I don't think he likes us either. It's very clear that we don't like him. 

 

One day, he draws the mouth of a whale on the chalkboard and he's explaining to us that whales eat small aquatic lifeforms. Then he turns to the class and says, “So, you see, this is why that story about Jonah and the whale is just a fairy tale. All those stories in the Bible, none of them are real.” He says this, even though he knows that most of us are Christians. “That on the playground, we sing gospel songs and reenact the service from the past Sunday, making fun of the women in their big hats and the way they shout and say Amen.” [audience [chuckles] He says this. 

 

When he says this, what I really hear, is that he's saying, my mama is wrong and my granddaddy and all the people who raised me. Who does he think he is to tell me God is not real? Our class bands together. We refuse to answer any of his questions. There are a few boys who have mastered the art of the spitball. [audience laughter] Every time he turns his back, somebody spews a spitball across the room and it hits him in his head or his neck or his arm. He doesn't know who's doing it, so he's just yelling at all of us. And then, Jennifer says, “It's them. They're the ones doing it.” And so, the boys get in trouble. And now, the class really cannot stand Jennifer.

 

There is talk about there being a fight after school to teach her a lesson and tell her to mind her business. But then, we find out that the boys are getting suspended for a day, which means they won't have to come to school, which means they really don't have it that bad. [audience chuckle] So, nobody fights Jennifer. But a few days later, she does the unthinkable. We're learning about Martin Luther King Jr., and she blurts out in class, "I don't understand what the big deal is. Why do we have to celebrate his birthday?" I wait to see what my teacher's going to say, wait to see if he's going to take her out into the hallway and do whatever it is that teachers do when they take students out into the hallway. [audience chuckle] But he doesn't say anything. He doesn't do anything.

 

And by the end of the day, rumors are spreading through the fifth grade, like fifth grade cooties. Everybody is saying that Jennifer hates Black people, that she says she wishes slavery never ended. The rumors are brutal. There is definitely going to be a fight after school. Never mind that Martin Luther King stood for nonviolence, never mind that just a few days ago we were good Christian kids defending our faith, people are talking about going over to Alberta Park and teaching her a lesson. So, when the bell rings and I see these students running after her into the park, instead of trying to stop them or telling the teacher, I turn the other way. 

 

I go home, mostly because my mother does not play. And she knows what time I get out of school and wants me home at a certain time. So, I just obey my mother, go home. And the next day, when the principal calls me out of class to ask if I know anything, probably because she trusts me and thinks I'm a leader and that I'm going to tell her what's happening, I don't say anything. She asks me, "Well, do you know why someone would even want to fight her? I mean, she's hurt and she's afraid to come back to school. There has to be a reason. What's going on?" I don't say anything. 

 

I mean, of course I know the answer. The answer is because she's the teacher's pet and because she believed also that Jonah couldn't have been swallowed by the whale. The answer is that she talked about Martin Luther King like he was a nobody. She makes us feel like we're nobodies. That's the answer. Those are the reasons. The reason, maybe it wasn't about Jennifer. Maybe it was about our teacher who also made us feel like nobodies and we couldn't hit and punch and kick him. Maybe it was also because an Ethiopian man was hit and punched and beaten with a baseball bat. We were sad, [sobs] we missed our teacher. We were confused. 

 

Sometimes sadness feels like anger. You just get so tired of hurting and you want to make somebody else hurt too. There were many reasons, but I didn't say anything. Jennifer never came back to class. I don't know that we missed her or that anybody really cared, but I have thought about her over the years and I've also thought about my silence. I've thought about how if I really believe that a poem could be impactful and be meaningful, even if it didn't change anything, then I also have to believe that my silence was harmful. And that's the thing I learned in the fifth grade, that the voice, it is powerful. It is a mysterious thing, because even when it's silent, it can still be heard. Thank you.