TILT # 27 - Invisibility, not so great a superpower

Every year, one of the journal topics I assign my students is, "If you had could choose one superpower, what would it be and why?" And every year, somebody is guaranteed to pick invisibility. Hands down, I'd bet a chocolate chip cookie on it. Up until recently, I thought it was an interesting superpower.

After George Floyd's murder in May of 2020, I spent a lot of time on teacher forums to continue learning about the Black Lives Matter movement and how I can be more effective as an educator in dismantling systemic oppression. One of the things I had to come to terms with was the phrase I myself use, "I am colour blind" when referring to race. I am neither black nor white. I am a person of colour and I use this phrase. On another blog post, I will share the story of how and why I used this phrase but for today, I am focused on what I have been learning about how other people of colour and especially Black people might receive this phrase.

I have learned from Black educators and friends that when they hear people say, "I am colour blind", it makes them feel "unseen", that who they are and what they represent, by the colour of their skin goes unacknowledged. I did not understand the extent of how this feels, that of not being seen until several incidences that happened back-to-back, following my first ever course at university taught by a Black professor. A strong, funny, astute Black woman who created a safe enough container for difficult questions to be asked so that more generative dialogue and work could be experienced.

After the course, in an incident where the staff in my school was being thanked for our outstanding jump into the online distance learning world even though we were far from being a techie school, the Chair of the board acknowledged many staff members sitting in a circle by saying their names but skipped me. Me, a 13-year member of the team.

Later in the week, as I stood in line outside a grocery store, waiting for my turn to go in, the man in line, in front of me motioned to the lady BEHIND me to go ahead of him. What. The. Eff!?? I was so taken aback, I actually did not know what to say when the lady behind me looked at the man, and then at me in confusion. After all, I was right behind the man and she was behind ME in the line up. I was trying to figure out what was different about her. Other than she was white and I was not, and HE was white, the other distinction I saw was that she wore a dress and I didn't. Should I be wearing freaking dresses to keep my turn in a line-up for the grocery store?

Then, I saw the team photo that was taken of my course mates for the course I spoke of above. We were the first class to complete this course virtually and so the professor asked to take a group photo to commemorate the moment in history on the last day. Guess what? I wasn't in the photo. Zoom only puts 25 screens per page and well, we were 25 students and 1 professor. Guess who was left behind on Page 2? I mean I appeared on my own page of 25 faces but I guess I did not on my professor's screen. It was not her fault but boy, I felt the pain of not being seen. Especially when among my classmates, I make big efforts to take photos to record memories for us.

This week, as my own teaching team prepared for Covid-reality classes, following the directives from higher up meant revamping our language classes in our school. I am the Advanced level language teacher and for this year, we cannot stream our students as we normally do for more efficient coverage of the program. As we sat to discuss how to combine our work and projects, the stress level was palpable. There was concern that half the kids would not be able to follow some of the content of my program. As much as we tried to "combine" what we had, I could not fight fixed mindsets and I could not reassure my colleagues that it is in how we teach the content and not the content that will set our kids on the path to success or stress.

After a week of going back and forth in circles, I thought of the children who would come to my class this year and chose today, to set aside all the work I have done for the past 12 years to develop a challenging but fun advanced level class and to opt as the main workbook, that of my colleague's instead of continuing to work on a hybrid book. This was my decision to be in service of the kids. Yeah, sure, my colleague said we could always add my stuff to the general program but we knew she was just paying lip service to me. I have my ladder of inference for saying this. I had actually voiced the fear that my entire program would disappear when we started collaborating. The others said that would not happen but voila...it's happening.

Why am I not fighting more for what I've earned in this case? Well, because I don't need to fight every battle. Or maybe I'm the giver that ends up at the bottom of the totem pole that Adam Grant speaks of in his book, "Give and Take". Whatever. I do not have the bandwidth to enter a battle that will cost myself and my small team valuable peace of mind during this extremely turbulent year. I do not have the energy to enter into competition with someone who has always competed with me even though I never invited them to. Or maybe, I really am a freaking doormat.

I will mourn the loss of my language program later but for now, I know more clearly, the pain of invisibility, the hurt of not being seen for who I am, and what I have and can bring to the table. I am learning what my "I am colour blind" stance can do to friends I care about. How's that for experiential learning?

Note - no photos for this post. Figured that goes really well with the invisible theme. I am stopping the use of "I am colour blind"... it may take a bit of time to completely remove it from the way I think. May I hurt less and less people unintentionally as I work on changing my vocabulary.