I'm pretty notorious for not knowing my place.
On the 4th day of Black History Month 2025, I was getting coffee from my friend’s classroom, as I do.
Our campus officer saw me and laughingly joked “Ma’am. You’re out of area.” I laughed, because it was a funny joke.
Ten minutes later, he and I - who talk everyday and have a great rapport - discussed how, as a young teacher, I sometimes felt nervous that I would get in trouble for being “out of area” the way the students do.
Yes, in case you did not know, “out of area” is a code on our referral forms. He reminded me that this coding is a prison policy as inmates are meant to remain in certain areas for the sake of maintaining order. That’s why the code didn’t make sense to me in the context of my job. Students aren’t prisoners. Unless they are.
That day’s random tidbit of unnecessary info from my buddy the resource officer was “I finally got to put my flag up.” I blinked confusedly and said nothing. “It’s a safe flag.” I dragged out the word: “Okaaaaay.” He got his phone so he could show me a photo. “It’s this one: the blue line flag, the law enforcement flag.” I took another bite of my breakfast. “Is that the same one they call the Blue Lives Matter flag?” He didn’t miss a beat, because everything is friendly here. “Yeah I guess. But I like to call it the blue line flag or the law enforcement flag.” I nodded in IDGAF: “Cool.”
IMPORTANT NOTE:
I promise, this man has never once been unkind to me nor have I seen him be unkind with students. He is fair and reasonable in his wielding of the rules and the law and his cuffs. He speaks to the students kindly, asks about their wellbeing, encourages them, remembers details about their lives so he can follow up. He really is my buddy in the context of work. I put that on my job.
So what tf are we supposed to do with this?Similarly, I used to have major beef with a Black campus resource officer I worked with for many years. I said some super slick anti-law enforcement comments to him at a basketball game years ago. I apologized to him when I was tryna date his friend. Haha. The friend and romantic interest didn’t understand why the officer and I had beef. He accepted my apology graciously. And then we got more beef later behind something completely different. Haha. I guess we weren’t meant to be cool.
I been “out of area” since May 2022. I didn’t feel like I was meant to be in Oklahoma, but I couldn’t get moved anywhere else. I went to Guatemala knowing it would be temporary but hoping it would give me a permanent clue. I’ve been searching high and low for my place in the Black future, when I’m wrong and when I’m right.
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