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Poor Black People Are Audited More Often the Rich White People
Teaching young elementary students at a “high needs” school was a distinctly harrowing experience, made more unbearable by the audit.
At the beginning of my first year as a school teacher, Principal Larson, who was already skeptical of my presence as a human being, parked herself at the back of my class while I was facilitating a lesson for students, little sponges offering their rapt attention. I would surreptitiously look to Principal Larson as I spoke, catching glimpses of her countenance. She would observe me teach for a period of time, grimace, and then emphatically scribble notes on her notepad. She continually repeated this process throughout the entirety of my lesson, causing my throat to dry and my stomach to quiver.
After completing the first audit, Principal Larson sat me down in her office and said, “I really think I’m going to have to fire you, Eze.” That’s what she led the conversation off with, so you can imagine how unpleasant the rest of the session was. She spent the rest of the meeting criticizing me unconstructively, yielding no new learnings on my part. After the withering rebuke ended, and my skin had finished sloughing off my body, Principal Larson, feigning magnanimity and benevolence, offered a second chance.
