They came quite often. They were always there . . . They were very concerned that we were not getting what we needed to get, in terms of education. We had excellent teachers. I just remember that.
In ninth grade, when Ms. Williams entered an integrated school, her parents’ concerns shifted and escalated:
Then, when the schools were integrated, that was a bigger concern. They, they had to come and check to make sure that, that we weren’t being knifed or, you know, hair pulled, you know, which happened quite a bit, you know. A lot of mean things happened.
By contrast, in Alexander’s life, overt racial incidents are unusual, as his mother acknowledges:
Those situations have been few and far between. I mean I can count them on my fingers. I remember . . . when Alexander was in first grade . . . first or second grade . . . there was a little white kid at school who said to Alexander and another little Black kid, “All you guys could be is garbage men when you grow up.” (She laughs.) . . . And Alexander’s standing there saying, “Well, I don’t understand that ’cause my Dad’s a lawyer.” (laughter) So, it didn’t even faze him what the kid was really saying.
Despite Mr. and Ms. Williams’s shared sensitivity to the importance of racial issues, they do not always agree about the best way or proper time to teach their son about cultural diversity. Mr. Williams seems mildly frustrated by what he views as his wife’s “protective” approach. He prefers to talk about race overtly. He strives to “alert” his son, but he does so in a more “superficial” way than he would like. Mr. and Ms. Williams also appear to have different ideas about the possibility for improvement and social change in race relations. Ms. Williams is the more hopeful of the two.
Ms. Williams seems less willing than others to “read” race into a situation.11 As the incident described below shows, she handles a potentially humiliating experience in a small, family-owned hardware store calmly and with no visible signs of distress and in a different fashion than the field-worker, a young African American man, would have:
(The store is crowded; about a dozen people wait in line.) . . . Christina was stooped over the counter. Her checkbook was on the counter top and she had a pen in hand before the [older woman] clerk stopped her. “We no longer accept checks. Do you have a credit card?” There were people behind us in line and others steadily coming through the door. (I thought Christina was going to “go off.” I certainly would have.)
Christina remained calm. . . . She looked the woman in the eye and spoke in a casual voice, “Yes, I do, but last time that I was here, I paid with a check.” The woman also spoke casually, “Well, since it is holiday season, we are trying to limit the amount of checks that we accept.”
The clearing of throats could be heard behind us. Christina did not pay any attention to it. “Mom,” (Alex, shaking his head) “you can’t. You promised that you would not use your credit card.” Christina had put her checkbook away and was now digging in her wallet, retrieving a credit card. Alex: “Let’s get Dad’s.” Christina looked at Alex, then smiled. She put her card back in the holder. Speaking to the salesperson, she said, “Can you hold the sled for me?” . . . When we approached the door, the woman behind the counter asked, “You’ll be right back?” Christina pointed in the direction of the car as she said, “I’m just going to the car and get my husband’s credit card.” Christina smiled as she left. . . . (I was upset with Christina. This woman was patronizing her.)
Exiting, Ms. Williams and the field-worker discuss the possibility of racism without ever explicitly using the term:
We walked out of the store. I asked Christina, “What did you think that was about? Why didn’t she take the check?” Christina, while looking across the street to where Terry was once parked, said nonchalantly, “I don’t think it was like that. . . . I can understand why she did not want to accept a check. I have a friend [who told me that] someone had written fifteen thousand dollars’ worth of bad money orders.” Alex: “How much? Fifteen hundred dollars?” Christina, looking around for Terry, said, “Fifteen thousand. Ten times more than fifteen hundred.”12 (During this conversation, Mr. Williams pulls up in front of the store. Alex gets one of his father’s credit cards and he, his mother, and the field-worker go back into the store and finish the transaction.)13
As the field-worker’s comments make clear, others likely would have perceived the clerk’s actions as a racially based insult.14 Ms. Williams did not. Equally important, she offered an alternative explanation that distracted her son. Thus, Alex seemed to process the events in the hardware store as nothing more than a temporary delay in the purchase of the sled he wanted. As the next section shows, Ms. Williams brings the same careful attention to other aspects of her son’s life as she devotes to the dynamics of race. Mr. Williams, too, takes an active, though less sustained, role in “developing Alexander.”
EMERGING SIGNS OF ENTITLEMENT
In interactions with professionals, the Williamses, like some other middle-class parents in the study, seem relaxed and communicative. They want Alex to feel this way too, so they teach him how to be an informed, assertive client. On one hot summer afternoon, Ms. Williams uses a doctor visit as an opportunity for this kind of instruction. During the drive to the doctor’s office, the field-worker listens as Ms. Williams prepares Alexander to be assertive during his regular checkup:
As we enter Park Lane, [Christina] says quietly to Alex, “Alexander, you should be thinking of questions you might want to ask the doctor. You can ask him anything you want. Don’t be shy. You can ask anything.” Alex thinks for a minute, then says, “I have some bumps under my arms from my deodorant.” Christina: “Really? You mean from your new deodorant?” Alex: “Yes.” Christina: “Well, you should ask the doctor.”
Alex’s mother is teaching him that he has the right to speak up (e.g., “don’t be shy”; “you can ask anything”). Most important, she is role modeling the idea that he should prepare for an encounter with a person in a position of authority by gathering his thoughts ahead of time. During the office visit, both mother and son have the opportunity to activate the class resources that were evident during the conversation in the car.
The doctor, a jovial white man in his late thirties or early forties, enters the examination room and announces that he will begin by going through “the routine questions.” When he notes that Alexander is in the ninety-fifth percentile in height, Alex interrupts him.
ALEX: I’m in the what?
DOCTOR: It means that you’re taller than more than ninety-five out of a hundred young men when they’re, uh, ten years old.
ALEX: I’m not ten.
DOCTOR: Well, they graphed you at ten. You’re—nine years and ten months. They—they usually take the closest year to get that graph.
The act of interrupting a person of authority is a display of entitlement. It is also indicative of middle-class child-rearing priorities: the incivility of interrupting a speaker is overlooked in favor of encouraging children’s sense of their individual importance and of affirming their right to air their own thoughts and ideas to adults. The casualness with which Alexander corrects the doctor (“I’m not ten”) is a further indication of this child’s easy assumption of his rights. A final signal, in the form of a clear directive Alex issues to the doctor, comes later, after he has listened to the doctor provide instructions over the phone for the emergency treatment of a child just admitted with an eye wound. “Stay away from my eyelids!” Alex commands, only half jesting.