The Bank Teller

When I first moved to my new school, one class I was able to prove myself in very quickly was my Honors English class. I'm pretty sure my teacher assumed I was going to be a slacker, but after reading some of my work, he quickly became interested in my life. Almost as if a smart black student in his class was some sort of endangered species. He asked me, "what do your parents do for a living?" This was a pretty weird question to ask off the back, obviously he intrigued by the possibility I didn't have deadbeat parents. I replied, "my mom is in investment banking, she works for J.P Morgan Chase." He clearly had NO IDEA what this meant and proceeded to say, "oh, so shes a BANK TELLER." I honestly a little taken a back. I know for an absolute fact that if I was white, he would not have assumed that my mother who is in investment banking must be a teller. When I told him she wasn't a bank teller, he then had the audacity to reply, "oh, maybe she is a branch manager." which essentially means, HEAD BANK TELLER. Of course there is nothing wrong with being a bank teller, but the way he couldn't get his head around my mother being something more was just uncomprehensible.

I really did not know how to respond to that, and definitely did not want to come across as rude. I just said calmly, "no, I think she is like an executive of a big company." The conversation pretty much ended after this, without him ever really acknowledging he was wrong. Honestly, it is not about that. I feel like the best way for me to combat oppression is to be different then the box they have put us in, and to therefore change the thought process and bias when it comes to black people and who they are.