World at Large

The great blue/gold dress debate

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As heated as the political arena has become, this isn’t the only time our nation was divided. Not too long ago, there was the Great Blue/Gold Dress Debate of 2015. If you’ll recall, the Internet blew up that winter because half the world saw the dress as blue, and the other half saw it as gold.

It took two years for scientists to explain how people could interpret the same color differently. It all depends on how the brain perceives color wavelength. The lighting under which the picture was taken, the angle at which the viewer is looking, the viewer’s environment, and even a person’s viewing history are all factors. In the end, we had a new understanding of how every unique brain interprets colors in different ways.

Some of you already know where I’m going with this.

May I present to you my Top 20 Things We Did NOT Hear During the Great Blue/ Gold Dress Debate and counting (because there is way too much material out there to keep it to 10):

*Disclaimer: I have heard these sentiments from both sides. I am an equal opportunity parodist.*

1. “Wake up, you f*cking idiot! Anyone can see that it’s blue!”

2. “Look…it’s blue. I’ve known my colors since pre-K. I wouldn’t say it was blue unless I knew what I was talking about.”

3. “I’m just checking…you don’t see gold…do you? I’d hate to think you were one of ‘those people.’”

4. “If you think this dress is gold, you’re a bad person.”

5. “You’re not looking at the facts. Your brain is interpreting the photo as more shadowy and compensating for the darker blue tinting, thereby perceiving the blue part as white and the black part as gold. If you can’t see that, you’re in denial.”

6. “Well…I just spring cleaned the gold-dressers from my friends list. If you see gold and I missed you, please delete me right now.”

7. “You know, Hitler thought that dress was gold. Just sayin’.”

8. “IT’S BLUE IT’S BLUE IT’S BLUE I CAN’T HEAR YOU lalalalalalala…”

9. “Oh yeah? I can prove that it’s blue. It’s all right here in www.GoldDressesSuck.com and www.GoldIsTheAntichrist.net. Look it up!”

10. “Can’t you just try to see blue? Look…if you stare hard enough at these stripes, you’ll see an indigo hue. You’ll be cured!”

11. “Well, the fact that you see gold is disappointing, to say the least. I thought you were raised better than that.”

12. “Did you hear about Dave? The Gold Dressers got to him. He’s brainwashed. Don’t try to reason with him–he’s too far gone.”

13. “You didn’t hear this from me–but I showed Judy the dress, and she confessed that she saw gold. And she seemed like such a normal person.”

14. “What color do you see? Gold? Can you look one more time? Please sit down. This is an intervention.”

15. “You know what? I don’t have time for your silly little gold dress narratives. You’re living in a fantasy world. We’re done here.”

16. “Well, we lost another one. One of my smartest friends has gone over to the side of the Gold Dresses. Has the world gone mad? We’re doomed!”

17. “You know, the gold dresses were manufactured by kittens in a Chinese sweatshop. But hey, you’ve gotta vote your conscience.”

18. “You wanna tell me one more time what color you see? Gold? What if I hold your face up to it like this? Huh? Still seein’ gold, ya little gold-diggin’ blue-denier?”

19. “I won’t rest until you stop lying about this whole gold thing. I will bring you to the land of the blue-seers. It’s my patriotic duty.”

20. “Well, that settles it. Snopes just said blue. Don’t you feel foolish?”

To the contrary, when a person who saw a blue dress collided with a person who saw gold, they were fascinated with each other’s differences. They tried to understand it. They agreed to disagree. They stayed friends. They moved on.

Perhaps it would have been easier to understand each other had they seen the same color. Conversation about that dress would have been effortless. But it sure as hell wouldn’t have been as interesting.

Isn’t it funny how…

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We state facts; they spread propaganda.

We are woke and enlightened; they are blind.

We are patriotic; they embrace dangerous ideals.

We have minds of our own; they are brainwashed.

We are peaceful protesters; they are violent rioters.

We speak logic and reason; they are raving, radical extremists.

We are educated and intelligent; they are…not.

We rely on fair, legitimate sources; their news is fake.

We vote for noble public servants; they vote for corrupt politicians.

Our side will save the country; their side will end it.

What’s that? You don’t know which side I’m referring to?

It doesn’t matter. This post speaks for both.

Snoopgate

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I’m not one to hold a grudge. Politically speaking, I can usually work my way past any scandal.

There was the whole White House intern thing, which to me was no more than a speed bump. Hilary’s email ordeal hit a nerve, but eventually, I put it behind me. Had I been old enough to be cognizant of current events during Watergate, I’m sure it would’ve rolled off my back like a tube of wiretapped Chapstick.

But there’s one scandal from February of last year that I just can’t seem to shake.

Kamala, what’s the deal with the whole Tupac/Snoop thing?

In case you’re too busy or smart to keep up with the slashing and burning of the media, Sen. Kamala Harris, while pushing her agenda for legal marijuana in California, found herself under scrutiny when she claimed to have smoked a joint in college while listening to Snoop Dogg and Tupac Shakur–even though the West Coast rappers didn’t come out until years after her graduation.

A fact check on LeadStories.com. defends that she didn’t specifically say during the interview that she listened to their music while in college. Still, this particular skeleton in her closet reeks. You can mess with homeland security, family values and election integrity. But a full year and a half later, Tupac/Snoopgate leaves a bad aftertaste.

I’m trying to overcome it, because I want to like Kamala. I admire any woman brave enough to smash through the glass ceiling headfirst with no helmet.

First we have to see the irony here. As most politicians have tried to conceal or play down their drug use back in their day, Kamala seems to be playing hers up. There was one thing she made perfectly clear: she did inhale. But I’m not sure I’m taking her word for it.

Bear with me for a moment while I take you back to 1986, the same year Kamala graduated from Howard University. I was an eighth-grader at Vogel Junior High School in Torrington, Connecticut. The time of day that I looked forward to most was dismissal, but not because I disliked school. It was because that was when the buses full of Torrington High School students would pull up like a motorcade to pick up us seventh and eighth-graders. In the back of one particular bus, en route to Highland Avenue, was Billy Rinaldi, whose black curls, smile and wave from his window would make me choke on my own heartbeat.

There were no two kids more wrong for each other than Billy and me. He was from what my friends and I affectionately coined the “burnout crowd.” I rolled with the honors kids. Billy wore a jean jacket with an Iron Maiden patch ironed on the back. I wore cat shoes with whiskers jutting from their toes. Billy attended keg parties at a clearing in the woods which his friends dubbed “The Fort.” I hung out in my friends’ living rooms binge-eating Doritos and watching The Breakfast Club. Billy was dangerous. I was hooked.

Because we were so different, and because I couldn’t risk losing his interest, the last thing I could be was myself. I could never admit to him that I had no idea what beer tasted like or that I’d never attended (or been invited to, no less) a keg party. I pretended to like his death-metal thrash bands, when in actuality, they made the whiskers on my cat shoes recoil.

Every time the phone rang after I got home from school, I had a whole set-up on the ready. There was an Iron Maiden tape that I copied (I don’t recall where I got a hold of the original), and I pointed my stereo system toward my phone, whose cord wasn’t long enough to reach the speaker. Every time the phone rang, I cut off Bon Jovi and hit the play button on Bruce Dickinson (whose historical references and powerhouse vocals I now appreciate), then casually answered. Of course, seeing how there was no caller ID, everyone got a dose of it, from my grandmother to my parents’ co-workers to Dr. McKenna’s office calling to confirm an appointment.

But anyway, back to Kamala. I have a feeling what really happened was that she was nursing an O’Doul’s hangover with a glass of tomato juice and a good book while lip syncing Whitney Houston into a hairbrush. And suddenly, she’s relatable.

And so after an agonizing eighteen months, I’m moving on. It’s time for the country to heal. Kamala, you’ve got one free pass, along with some parting words of advice.

Touch one hair on Jon Bon Jovi’s head, and it’s over.

Good teacher, bad teacher

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Over the course of our academic careers, whether short or long, it’s rare to encounter someone who hasn’t had a bad teacher enter the scene.

I’ve had a lot of them. There was Ms. Grimwald, a language arts teacher who ran the drama club, who slammed a garbage can at my feet during a dress rehearsal when she suspected I was chewing gum. When she inspected my mouth in front of a middle-school audience and saw that she was mistaken, she unleashed a tirade–most likely to save face–about how she was certain I was lip syncing the Slovenian anthem during our production.

There was that time in second grade when we were having a class discussion about why oranges don’t make the best fruits to pack in our lunches. I timidly raised my hand (not something I did often) and offered that perhaps some people don’t like the way they smell. Ms Cantankerfeld stared at me blankly for a moment, then said, “For that, I’m not talking to you for the rest of the day.” And she didn’t.

There was that conversation I overheard in the hallway between my second and third-grade teachers. “She’s in la la land,” Ms. Tetchwart quipped. “She won’t even look at me when I’m talking to her. Every time I call on her, she’s got her head in the clouds!” (ADHD was unheard of back then, but the diagnosis I went on to get in college would have spared me an academic career loaded with struggle and misunderstandings.)

It’s not that any one of these particular events were so traumatic that they should have mattered as they did. It was the way some of my teachers looked at me. It was the tone in their voices that sent me a message loud and clear: “You’re not smart. You’re insignificant. I don’t like having you in my class.”

Teachers are powerful people. And when they misuse their power, they can murder a child’s self esteem. Their words, whether spoken or unspoken, can spawn adults who go on to defeat themselves over the course of their lifetime and squash their own potentials.

It goes without saying that all the above names of teachers have been changed, because when I grew up to become a teacher myself, I understood what happens to some of us along the way. I’m not going to list the excuses. But I will say with fair certainty that no new teacher sets out on a career path with the intent to hurt children. I’d be willing to bet that most set out to change the world, but all too often, the world ends up changing them.

I have to be fair. I wasn’t the best student. Some teachers who I deemed “bad” were inspirational to others. And it would be hard to find any good teacher that hasn’t had “bad teacher” moments, myself included.

So far, I’ve told two of my three children about the bad teachers in my life. I told them after much deliberation. In the end, I decided they need to know bad teachers are out there. They need to build a defensive wall beforehand should one of them ever cross their academic path.

But in telling them those stories, there were others I made sure not to overlook. And for these, I’m not changing any names.

There was Mr. Steven Ksenych, who was the first teacher to ever point out to me that I was good at writing. He entered me in a district-wide writing competition in the Torrington schools, and I won my first medal. Even though it was bronze, it opened that first door.

There was Mr. Thomas Hebert, who worked tirelessly to enter my work in magazines. He saw to it that I didn’t leave elementary school without seeing my name in print.

There was Ms. Ann Gensch, who would stop me in the hallway to tell me how much she enjoyed my stories, then read them to her other classes.

There was Ms. Maria Cravanzola, who yanked me out of class during her planning period to remind me of my potential and demand I change my direction when I started to veer off course. (Sometimes, I learned, it was the toughest and strictest teachers who cared the most.)

There were so many more. Ms. Joanne Seger, Mr. “Bud” Connell, Mrs. Mary Cianciolo, Ms. Eileen Fahey. There are too many to name, and too many stories to tell–and it’s imperative that my children hear about them as well.

Why? Because if they never hear about the great ones–heroes, in my mind–I know I’ll wind up raising kids who grow up to fear and dislike teachers. I understand how fear and dislike breeds disrespect. And when kids don’t like or respect teachers, their education suffers.

It’s important that my children understand that like anything in life, when it comes to teachers, there are good, and there are bad. We just have to choose which teachers we allow to make the biggest impact.

It’s not to let cranky, jaded teachers off the hook. I am grateful that I work for a school district that has instilled (and some would say, pounded) into our heads that there are so many things that come into play when a child turns our classes upside down. Socioeconomics, disabilities, poverty, and racism, to name a few. Kids who come to school every day and don’t want to go home because there’s not enough food, love, or attention. Kids who don’t feel safe in their communities. I’ve learned through the years that with every show of disrespect, there’s a story behind it. Good training has forced me to examine the big picture, and it made me into a better, more sensitive teacher.

Even though I changed a few names, not every teacher deserves anonymity. Teachers who hurt children physically, in my opinion, lose their right to be shielded. Whenever I see a teacher on the news who has crossed into the black abyss of unspoken acts against children, the morale in our communities suffers, especially among teachers. Although I am proud of what I do and know I’ve made a positive impact in the lives of hundreds, for those brief moments that people gape at the news and shake their heads at one transgressor, I am embarrassed to tell people that I’m a teacher.

But I can say this. During those moments, I am grateful that communities aren’t burned, and that innocent people aren’t getting killed during riots.

I am grateful for parents who don’t recount every last tale of the bad teachers in their lives to their children without acknowledging the great ones in between.

I am grateful that no one suggests, when abusive teachers pop up in the news, that we defund education as a consequence.

Victims of bad teachers and police alike fill our cities. For some, like George Floyd, who died at the hands of a police officer who crossed far into the black abyss, the damage is irreparable.

There are the good, there are the bad, and then there are the brutal. Let’s take a breath for a moment and think about how we’re going to address each category.