I am a mother. I have thrown myself into the flames of motherhood that both illuminate and burn. I tuck away in a pocket of my heart the smiles on the faces of my children as they have met with success or the quiet glances of knowing they did the right thing. But, also stored there are the painful push backs they have received along their journey, the defeats, the sadness. Those are saved, as well.
As a mother, the bonds with other mothers bear a strength beyond comprehension. My heart forges with theirs as they bask in their child’s joys. It drops off a cliff when their offspring experience unbearable pain.
This is a story about my son. A brilliant and creative soul who faced head-on the travails of having dyslexia. Throughout the years, we supported him to develop self-advocacy. It was a humbling and sometimes hurtful experience to admit a difference and explain not only what you needed, but why, as if they didn’t know.
It all paid off in a junior year AP history class when the teacher continued to refuse to put the in-class work on Kurtzweil. “Why are you the only kid I need to do this for?” the teacher asked. “It’s unfair to the others.” “Well,” my son responded. “I’m the only one with dyslexia in this class.” His friends tried to read the passages to him, but one day, he had had enough. He took the hand out, walked out of the classroom to the history department, and put the passage onto Kurzweil himself. Neither of his actions was allowed in his school. We congratulated him on doing what he needed to do. So did the department chair, and he was transferred the next day to another history teacher’s class who embraced him and his dyslexia.
My son is White. Would he have received this treatment if he were Black or Brown? I’ve read the stories and stared teary-eyed at Black moms who have shared their fears over the brutality sentenced on their children by bias and ignorance and hate. Maybe I drew an over-large empathy card from the deck of life, but I turned off the audio of When They See Us while I watched a mother of one of the boys thrash in pain, knowing her baby was innocent but was going to end up tortured for life.
We know the answer to the question of whether or not a Black student with dyslexia would have received the same applause and reassignment as did my son. We need a much better answer.
