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I am the proud father
of two beautiful children,

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Elijah, 15, and Octavia, 12.

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When Elijah was in the fourth grade,

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he came to me,

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came home from school bubbling over
with excitement about what he had learned

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that day about African American history.

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Now, I'm an African American
and Cultural Studies professor,

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and so as you can imagine

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African American culture
is kind of serious around my home.

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So I was very proud that my son
was excited about what he had learned

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that day in school.

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So I said, "What did you learn?"

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He said, "I learned about Rosa Parks."

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I said, "OK, what did you learn
about Rosa Parks?"

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He said, "I learned that Rosa Parks

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was this frail old black woman

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in the 1950s

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in Montgomery, Alabama

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and she sat down on this bus

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and she had tired feet

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and when the bus driver
told her to give up her seat

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to a white patron,

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she refused because she had tired feet,

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it had been a long day,

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and she was tired of oppression,

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and she didn't give up her seat.

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And she marched with Martin Luther King

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and she believed in non-violence."

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And I guess he must have looked at my face

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and saw that I was
a little less than impressed

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by his history lesson.

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And so he stopped, and he was like,
"Dad, what's wrong? What did I get wrong?"

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I said, "Son, you didn't
get anything wrong,

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but I think your teacher
got a whole lot of things wrong."

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He said, "Well, what do you mean?"

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I said, "Rosa Parks was not tired.

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She was not old.

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And she certainly didn't have tired feet."

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He said, "What?"

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I said, "Yes!"

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Rosa Parks was only 42 years old.

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Yeah, you're shocked, right?
Never heard that.

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Rosa Parks was only 42 years old,

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she had only worked six hours that day,
and she was a seamstress,

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and her feet were just fine.

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The only thing that she was tired of

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was she was tired of inequality.

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She was tired of oppression.

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And my son said,

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"Well, why would my teacher
tell me this thing?

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This is confusing for me."

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Because he loved this teacher,
and she was a good teacher,

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and young-ish, 20-something white woman,

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really, really smart, pushed him,
so I liked her as well.

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But he was confused.
"Why would she tell me this?" he said.

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He said, "Dad, tell me more. Tell me more.
Tell me more about Rosa Parks."

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And I said, "Son, I'll do you one better."

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He was like, "What?"

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I said, "I'm going to buy
her autobiography

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and I'm going to let you
read it yourself."

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(Laughter)

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So as you can imagine,

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Elijah wasn't too excited about
this new lengthy homework assignment

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that his dad had just given him,
but he took it in stride,

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and he came back

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after he had read it

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and he was excited
about what he had learned.

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He said, "Dad, not only was Rosa Parks
not initially into non-violence,

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but Rosa Parks' grandfather
who basically raised her

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and was light enough to pass as white

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used to walk around town
with his gun in his holster,

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and people knew that if you messed
with Mr. Parks' children or grandchildren,

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he would put a cap
in your proverbial bottom."

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Right?

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He was not someone to mess with.

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And he said, "I also learned
that Rosa Parks married a man in Raymond

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who was a lot like her grandfather.

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He would organize.

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He was a civil rights activist.

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He would organize events

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and sometimes the events would be
at Rosa Parks' home,

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and one time Rosa Parks remarked

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that there were so many guns on the table

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because they were prepared for somebody
to come busting into the door

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that they were prepared
for whatever was going to go down,

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that Rosa Parks said there were
so many guns on the table

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that I forgot to even
offer them coffee or food."

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This is who Rosa Parks was,

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and in fact Rosa Parks,

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when she was sitting on that bus that day

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waiting for those
police officers to arrive

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and not knowing what was going
to happen to her,

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she was not thinking about
Martin Luther King,

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who she barely knew.

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She was not thinking about
non-violence or Gandhi.

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She was thinking about her grandfather,

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a gun-toting take-no-mess grandfather.

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That's who Rosa Parks was thinking about.

NOTE Paragraph

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My son was mesmerized by Rosa Parks,

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and I was proud of him
to see this excitement.

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But then I still had a problem,

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because I still had to go his school

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and address the issue with his teacher,

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because I didn't want her
to continue to teach the kids

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obviously false history.

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So I'm agonizing over this,
primarily because I understand,

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as an African American man

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that whenever you talk
to whites about racism

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or anything that's racially sensitive,

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there's usually going to be a challenge.

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This is what white sociologist
Robin DiAngelo calls "white fragility."