Change we can believe in

I went to school in the ghetto. I'm not exaggerating. My elementary school was surrounded by shotgun shacks and my middle school sat in the middle of public housing. I saw very few white faces in my classrooms and all of my closest friends were black.

At home, across town, it was like a photo negative. We had no black families in our neighborhood and neighbors with no interest in changing that.

I grew up in Baton Rouge, and I was bused across town because of desegregation laws, which is how I ended up in the ghetto every day. Rather than attending the school just down the street, I was sent on a forty-five minute bus ride one way to a school that needed it's chocolate mixed with a little cream. It was a fantastic experience. I hung out with my girls Shemika, Yolanda, Neddra, LaTina, Andrella and Donyelle at recess. I learned the newest dances and discovered Kool and the Gang and New Edition. I was blessed that my parents looked at it as a culturally enriching experience. Not all of my family did.

Unfortunately, I've got some not-so-closeted bigots in my family tree. I heard all manner of racist jokes and epithets while growing up. I was blessed with parents who were careful never to perpetrate that kind of garbage in our home, and we were free to enjoy colorful friendships and school experiences.

That didn't make me blind to the fact that outside of the chain link fence around our school, things were not the same for my friends and I. I could see and know for myself that being white made me different and gave me advantages that they didn't have and I felt, even at an early age, that white guilt some of us have. Even more, I felt an overwhelming sense of injustice at our different treatment.

My high school, by law, was required to maintain no more than a 60% white majority, and the remaining forty percent was fleshed out by Asians, Indians, and blacks. I knew almost no Latinos. In fact, I can name only one from my acquaintance. Our public high school, an academic magnet, attracted the best and the brightest minds in our district and we worked in a wonderful melting pot of high achievement and cultural diversity. But again, when we left the grounds of the school, most of my black friends returned to the poverty-stricken rundown neighborhood that surrounded the campus and the rest of us took buses back to our tree-lined suburban streets.

I kept my son home from school this morning to watch the inauguration of a man who proves that even when the scars of segragation are fresh just in my short lifetime, that we are a nation of people who can change. Yes, we can. We can deliver on the promise of hope to the generation my sons represent, and we can work toward a time when neither race nor money defines us. We aren't there yet, but we are so much closer than we were yesterday.

I have tried to walk my talk. I took a teaching post at a middle school challenged by the integration of Hispanic students into a previously "white" campus so I could be one of the teachers that wanted "them" there, instead of demanding transfers off-campus. I chose to enroll my son in the track at school that had the highest proportion of English language learners so he could enjoy the exposure to the rich language and cultural differences, and embrace them.

I hope, as Rick Warren prayed, that President Obama has the wisdom to govern in humility and the courage to govern with integrity. I hope the we regain our credibility with the international community and set the standard for liberty and civility.

But mainly I hope that my children will judge others only on the content of their character and never the color of their skin and never dream that there was a time when it was different.