Race Lessons Chapter 4 Summary

Chapter 4- Race Lessons
This chapter follows Dalton through his first academic experiences where he is introduced to the concept of race through personal experiences. In his first classroom experience his mother was given the choice of enrolling him in a predominantly Black, Puerto Rican, or Chinese class. He describes the fact that his mother was given the choice of which class he should join be stating, "The choices our race gave us were made quite explicit- by a government institution, no less."

His mother chose the classroom with predominantly black students, but he was later moved to a predominantly Chinese classroom due to his clear discomfort with being singled out by his teacher for being the only white student. In order to enforce discipline in the classroom the teacher in the black classroom hits the students on the back of the hand using a ruler, however because he was a white student, the teacher was not comfortable using this type of discipline method with a white child ("... took it for granted that a black teacher would never cross the racial line to strike a white student."). His mother visits the school and suggests that none of the
"Teacher's usually did a good job of ignoring the fact that one kid was shorter than another or another was fatter, but it was they, not the other students, who made my skin color an issue. The kids had only picked up on the adult cues and then interpreted them. Moreover, height, weight, and other physical characteristics were relative states. But being white was constructed a as matter of kind, not degree." He describes his social relations with his classmates as predominately a school relationship. He says, "I must have already started to segregate myself culturally, since it never even crossed my mind to invite any of the kids home with me after