Unequal Childhoods - Annette Lareau [180]
The coach’s side of the story is not known; Harold’s interpretation may be wrong. He may have overestimated his prowess. The key point here is that his own efforts to resolve the situation—by talking to the coach and the principal—did not get him on the team. This experience ended up being hugely consequential for Harold. He began working full-time to “take his mind off” basketball. He got off work late, got home even later, and began missing school. In the end, although he had once dreamed of playing college ball, he dropped out of high school. This outcome would have been quite unlikely had Harold been from a middle-class family. Middle-class parents usually have the necessary understanding of the system and the particular knowledge of their own child that bring about successful resolutions when institutional conflicts occur. Also, these parents’ conception of their child-rearing responsibilities includes resolving school conflicts to their own satisfaction. Working-class and poor youth had talents and determination, but they generally did not have adults who were prepared to intervene on their behalf with institutions.
In some instances, however, parents did intervene in schooling, and sometimes successfully. For example, when Wendy had to have multiple knee surgeries and missed weeks of school, her mother arranged for tutors (paid for by the district) to visit the house. Other times, the interventions were fraught with conflict and led to mixed results. Billy, for example, was suspended for throwing a paper ball which hit a teacher. Ms. Yanelli had “witnesses” who insisted that it had not been Billy who threw the ball. She met with the principal but achieved no satisfaction:
He was a really, really nasty man. He wouldn’t even give me a chance. So he wouldn’t let me bring my witnesses down and I said, “Well, I’m going to fight this and if this goes to the school board, I’m going to make sure my witnesses are heard.” And he said, “Well, you do what you got to do.”47
The school board meeting also went badly:
They sent us into this woman’s office, and she was like the head of the school board or something. And I thought we were going down to tell our side of the story. And we get in there and she starts saying, “William has to be put, has to be placed somewhere. This can’t go on.” So I started to tell her my side of the story how I had witnesses and everything. And she said, “You can’t talk.” And I said, “I can’t talk at all?” And she said to me, “You can’t talk.” And I said, “Why am I here?” And she said, “Because you’re here for me to tell you how it’s going to be.”
Ms. Yanelli, feeling suspicious that the woman was “prejudiced,” expressed her frustration openly:
She’s a Black woman and everybody there is Black. We were the only ones there that’s white. And I don’t have nothing against Black or white, but that day I felt like I was being prejudiced against, like they were being prejudiced against me. Like at last they got a white kid or something. That’s how I felt that day. So I looked at her right in her face, this right nose to nose, and I said, “You’re a nasty, nasty woman. I don’t like you and I curse you.” And I got up and walked out. Big Billy was so embarrassed that I screamed in her face.
Thus, two major interactions with educators had ended badly, and the situation was not resolved in the way that Ms. Yanelli had hoped. She discussed the problem with one of the women whose houses she cleaned, and her employer made arrangements for a pro bono lawyer. The lawyer “told [her] what to do,” which resulted in another meeting:
Then we went in front of another part of the school board and the woman sat us down. And I explained