Yet still, many teachers seemed indifferent to discussing these issues at all. When Teach for America organized diversity sessions, many teachers in the corps would skip the sessions or come back telling me, “I am so sick of being forced to talk about this.” In one diversity session, so many teachers walked out in the middle of the meeting that corps members all received an email from the Teach for America Bay Area Director asking why so many people had left. A white teacher told me, “All those sessions do is make us all feel uncomfortable.” As a person who had spent a large part of my life as a person of color in predominantly white, upper-class spaces feeling uncomfortable, I felt frustrated that other Teach for America teachers did not want to tolerate just a few hours of this discomfort trying to discuss issues that could help the population their position focused on serving.

Before joining Teach for America, I had prioritized learning about communities of color. I took classes on the history of racial and social hierarchies in our country and their present-day effects. I interacted with low-income black and Latino populations, socially or professionally, and had several conversations about the struggles they faced. These experiences helped me in the classroom: I could use this information, as well as my personal experiences as a person of color, to relate to the lives of my students and motivate them in the ways they needed. Seeing how effective this background knowledge worked in my own classroom, and in other teachers who had put in the same amount of effort, made it more frustrating that others weren’t so willing to do the same. I understood that diversity sessions had flaws and did not always produce immediate positive results, but it still seemed that by opposing them entirely, we were all missing a valuable opportunity to become better teachers.

One night, I shared a drink with a fellow Teach for America teacher in the Mission neighborhood of San Francisco, an area historically with a mostly Latino, lower-income population. Upon learning that I lived in this neighborhood, the teacher told me, “Man, I feel sorry for you. I could never live in such a dirty place. I couldn’t even stand the buses around here. I took a taxi.” It shocked me that a person teaching students from neighborhoods so similar to the Mission could so easily dismiss it. It shocked me even more when this same person was later chosen to give a speech at an educational fundraiser about his success as a teacher. I have no doubt that he was effective in the classroom in several ways. But yet I had to wonder how he could truly help our students when he could so easily show disdain for the places they came from.

For other teachers of color I knew, cultural insensitivity had more significant consequences on their time in the classroom. A classmate of mine from college—Mexican-American and from a low-income family—told me she quit her job at a New York school because of this issue. The school required its students during the summer to intern at pre-approved programs without pay. A student’s mother told administrators that her family could not afford the price of the school’s uniforms unless their daughter worked for pay during the summer as a store cashier, instead of interning. My friend spoke to the administration on behalf of this student, explaining how she worked similar part-time summer jobs to support herself in high school. The administrated denied their request. My classmate said,

The administration explicitly told me, “That kind of work just doesn’t build character in the way our programs do.” I responded, “I may not have had the luxury of having unpaid internships, but I can assure you that the summer jobs I had definitely built character.” I was deeply offended by her close-mindedness, and her unwillingness to listen to a different perspective. I realized that my work, ideas, and point of view were not valued by the ones in charge.

Her story made it clear that a lack of cultural awareness from coworkers can make people of color not feel included in their work environments, and ultimately leave.