Like everyone else, I’m reading Michelle Obama’s memoir, Becoming. It’s a really good read but something in the first chapter stuck out at me.
In the chapter, Obama describes her big piano recital. She had practiced for hours on her aunt’s “less-than-perfect upright, with its honky-tonk patchwork of yellowed keys and its conveniently chipped middle C.” She knew she could play her piece without really thinking about it. But suddenly, she was sitting at a perfect piano with gleaming white keys and couldn’t figure out how to begin.
It was a moment I could relate too. The moment when “the disparities of the world” show themselves for the first time.
I grew up in a diverse neighborhood that experienced “white flight” by the time I became school age. We had one lone white neighbor left and the elderly lady kept to herself. My high school was majority black. You could count the white students on one hand.
Now, we weren’t naive enough to think that we had the best resources. Our teachers did the best they could with what they had and we all prospered. But it became clear to me the day I took my SAT at a high school in another district. A predominately white district.
I walked into this newly built high school and marveled at the shine on the floor, the spacious classrooms and bigger desks. We walked past the computer lab and I couldn’t believe the number of stand-alone computers that were available.
I sat in the big comfortable desk and stared straight ahead.
It’s hard to describe the sense of unfairness you feel. The moment you realize that “there are disparities in the world”. And those disparities make you feel “less than”.
But like Mrs. Obama, I had someone to show me where to start. Aunt Robbie showed a young Michelle where to place her hands on the keys. Words of encouragement from my wonderful English teacher, Mrs. Dantzler, played in my head and helped me find my way.
If you are reading, Becoming, please share some of your thoughts in the comment section.