McLaren and Shanice

The last McLaren article that we read for class made a few things clear for me that I didn't understand before. Case in point, Shanice. Or maybe I should say, Shanice's family.

A co-worker at my school is heavily involved in basketball camps. One summer, a girl came to play at one of the camps run by my co-worker, and as the co-worker's family got to know this girl, their hearts broke. She was a black girl living in squalid inner-city conditions with many brothers and sisters--all different fathers--and a drug-addicted mother.
Long story short, my co-worker took some of the kids in--the girl (a high schooler), two boys grades 1 and 3, and Shanice, an 8th grader. Shanice became my student, and it was my job to fill in the gaps that had developed over her academic career. There were many. Shani was hard working and eager to please, and hurt by life. She spent most of the school year in my class with her thumb in her mouth. But she persevered.

It is five years later, and Shani has graduated high school and gone on to college. I keep in touch with her through my co-worker, and I am amazed at the transformation. She makes eye contact, she smiles, and she is conversational. But I hear stories as well. She goes home to visit her family and they make fun of her for turning her life around. They ask her for money. They call her "white n*****." I never understood why they would want to drag her down, but now I do--a little more anyway.

It just makes me appreciate Shanice even more. She has resisted the pull to go back to her family's expectations. She is making a future for herself. She is smart and beautiful and strong.