The Chronicles of Rafeeat in Elementary School. Part 2

By: Rafeeat Bishi

We're gonna jump to second grade. That year was a trip. To be fair I wasn't an amazingly behaved student, but I was also 8 and there were many times when I received unwarranted reactions from my teacher Mrs. McAllister. There's a day I remember vividly.

Another student (someone who's VERY important, I'm thinking of giving him his own post) got into a fight. This wasn't anything new, as he was known for being a "problem student" (-_-). I actually saw him at ShopRite the other day.

Anyway, me and my friend had faces of shock and were exclaiming like the other kids around us. My friend was also Black btw.

A lunch aide walked up to us and yelled, telling us to stop. I think we were then ordered to go sit down. Our teacher was called down and the lunch aide told her that we were cheering the fighting boys on. Me and my friend were dumbfounded, because we were actually watching the fight from quite a distance. We tried to protest but were told be quiet. We were then given recess detention with the fighting students. My teacher told another teacher that we had been "cheerleaders" during the incident.

Thinking about it makes me sad because why should two little kids be sent inside and isolated for having natural reactions? If you're 8 and see people fighting, you don't think to to tell a teacher or walk away. We were surprised, it was probably the first fight I myself had seen. Why wouldn't we yell in a shocked manner. I remember feeling as if I should blame myself and wondering what I did to be punished. And why were all of the kids in detention Black, when our other classmates were doing the same thing? I don't know if it was a direct result of implicit bias, but something was definitely going on as the lunch aide ONLY came towards us.

This teacher hadn't always been a fan of mine and singled me out for a lot of behavior that other kids exhibited. I remember her being very cold towards me. Jokes on her I was the highest level reader in class.

This is irrelevant but I got mad at her one day and stole her candy lol.

There's a LOT that happened in this second grade classroom I could write a book. But I think I'll leave her for now. And since I mentioned Ms. Stein being white in the previous post, I think I should do the same for this teacher. She was biracial, I remember her telling a story about being Black and White.