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The Noticing is Not Enough
Free Form Reflection
The thing I notice is that noticing is not enough.
There is much to see and pay attention to. Many wide eyes, white faces with slow nods of affirmation. We have seen, they said. We are looking at history. We have dug archaeological sites into the sides of our cheeks — digging, gnawing, searching for the right words. When the words fail, we stand attentive. At attention. All recognition and consolation and unmoving, unwavering inaction. Flags half-mast, flags cast upside down signaling distress, signaling virtue, standing at notice. I see you, they say.
The noticing is not enough.
Fourth grade: his teacher tears in half the essay of a black boy, the only black boy in the class. Lesson teaching that your name must be on the line at the top of the paper. Your name must be good enough for white discretion, white judgment, white rulers. Shipshape and straight she shackles his shame to the desk as my white son’s wide eyes watch his classmate’s dark eyes water and her gaze never waver. Halves hit the trash. The classroom shifts in a split of a page of paper, split second. Shift.
He comes home with questions and I remind him to pay Capital A Attention. To make friends in the margins. To notice color, but live in liberal expression of creative affirmation. I see you, I…
