Hmm, I spent nearly three decades as a public school teacher in an urban elementary school. Fortunately, schools with children at such a young age don't require school police. Our school staff was mostly brown and black. Sadly, I saw MANY, MANY black and brown boys who came to school in their early years as happy, eager-to-learn students.

YOU AND I BOTH KNOW that beginning at about grades three and four, young boys of color begin to get serious peer pressure from other youth to "choose" who are you going to be. Are you going to be "white?," i.e., do well in school, or are you going to conform to the stereotype? Many, many black boys give in to such pressure. After all, their identities are being questioned and they want to fit in.

Am I going to argue that black and brown children are free of unpleasant and racist incidents at school? Of course not. I was a black child in America before I was a teacher in America. I know how schools work. I also know how neighborhoods work.

"Respectability politics" my you-know-what. I know who I am.