Good White Person

This morning I rode my bike to the farmers market. As I rode down my street, I said hello to and sort of ended up riding with another kid on a bike. He told me I didn't need a helmet, and asked why I was wearing one.

I figured I would never talk to this kid again, so I told him a friend of mine was hit by a car on her bike and killed. This did happen, but she wasn't someone I knew personally.

I also told him about the deal with my mom (she pierces her nose, I wear my helmet). He asked me how old my mom was, and said that he thought that was pretty cool.

He told me his name is Rashad and asked me if I go to school, and guessed Russell Sage. I had to explain about Goddard and how I don't live in Vermont. "Oh, but you're from there?" No, I'm from this area. I grew up in Saratoga.

"That explains the accent."

Accent?!?

"Yea, sort of country..."

Rashad goes to Hudson Valley. He grew up in Rochester. He is a year older than me, and is impressed that I'm where I'm at in my studies.

At one point he asked me if I had a boyfriend / why I didn't have a boyfriend. I started to explain that I'm looking for someone who loves Jesus and this isn't easy to find. At this point, his demeanor changed a little bit. A little more serious, a little less flirty. He asked me if I had ever looked into Jehovah's Witnesses.

I explained that I'm really opposed to this, because it is a "works" religion - being that you have to be on your toes at all times making sure you're doing everything right so that God will like you. I really believe that it should stem from faith, a love of God, a love of Jesus causes you to want to do things in a certain way. Like, I love my mom so I wear my helmet, because I wouldn't want to be dishonest to her. I don't wear the helmet because I think that not doing so will hurt my relationship with my mom, even if I believe that to be true, it isn't my motivation.

OK, Jehovah's Witness bashing and explanation over.

Rashad told me that he really wanted to be all religious (for the record, I never in my life set out to be 'all religious'), and that he questioned a lot of different religions. He asked me some questions, of which I explained my beliefs or explained why I thought the answers were irrelevant. Then he asked me two questions I found really interesting.

He asked me what I thought about a white, pointy nosed, blond haired, blue-eyed Jesus.

Jesus is from the Middle East, he wasn't from Western Europe. It is a pretty ridiculous notion that he was a white guy.

He asked me if I believed in Adam and Eve, and what I thought about them being white.

If we all came from Africa, and I believe that Adam and Eve started it all, then it follows that they were African.

"African? You believe that?"

Yea, I mean, it makes sense.

"You're a good white person."

I questioned him and he elaborated "There are bad white people and good white people, and there are bad black people and good black people."

This made me think of something John Green said today, about how we like crime shows because they make good and evil very simple and clear cut, when in reality it isn't so simple.

This conversation also is significant because I had spent the last packet discussing race relations.

Synchronicities abound.

If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.

I hate Kindergarten. Everyone always coos when I tell them I'm subbing for a kindergarten teacher, about how cute it is going to be. Tuesday I subbed for a Kindergarten teacher and I was wished "good luck" by some of the parents. I don't know if you could confuse this, but to be clear, this was spoken in a foreboding manner, a warning of sorts.

The kids were pretty bad for kindergartners, nothing too violent, just a lot of whining and talking out of turn. One of the kindergartners asked me if I ever subbed for pre-K. I told him that I had but I try not to. "Why not? All the cute babies are there!" he cooed. For some reason, one or two years allows little kids to think of themselves as grown and others as little. Pre-K is kindergarten void of anything I might like about kindergarten. And I'm having a hard time thinking of what that might be.

So I was psyched when I got the call to work a three day job at a certain high school 5 minutes from my house. Instead of a half hour drive to tie shoelaces and listen to how someone doesn't want to be Katie's friend anymore, I can leave the house at the same time, drive five minutes, be home an hour earlier, and have a far less dense parade of problems to deal with.

Same kids, three days in a row. High Schoolers have come down from their hormonal obnoxiousness of sixth through eighth grade; they chill out and stop trying to fight you as much. All three days, the plan was to watch To Kill a Mockingbird. Suite.

The second day some kids started to tell me that I look like an old actress. One girl said I looked like I was from the sixties. Could the striped turtleneck have anything to do with that?

Most of the kids were really well behaved and just watched the movie. I got to watch it five times, in small increments. As I never read the book, and had never seen the movie before, this was the most suspenseful thing possible. I rewatched Mayella's flawed testimony and Tom Robinson's defense over and over again.

Some of the kids complained that the movie was boring. Kids always complain that things are boring. Just because you'd rather be making out in the bathroom or beating somebody up at the flagpole doesn't mean that the activity you are engaged in is intrinsically insipid. Many of them supported this claim with the fact that the movie is in black and white. Apparently, this hurts their eyes, and is less entertaining than a color film. I thought it was really interesting that I got this comment from three girls who were reading. Books. Without pictures. With black text on white pages. If you have the imagination to enjoy a novel, how can you find fault in an old film?



Speaking of old, black and white films, I finally watched Jean-Luc Godard's seminal piece Á Bout De Souffle (Breathless). Last year I read the entire Youth in Revolt series. (I'm patiently awaiting the film release). This movie is so important to the character of Sheeni Saunders. It is mentioned many many times throughout the book(s); Nick Twisp does things to make himself more Belmondoesque (not that Michael Cera will have to try too very hard for this). However, now that I've seen this movie, I can understand that Sheeni is, or desires to be Patricia Franchini. And I too have a love for Jean-Paul Belmondo. He might have been the most attractive man of the sixties.


Also, as I often do when I see someone with hair I admire, I chopped mine off.

If no one mentions your haircut, does it mean they dislike it?