As a homeschooler in the state of North Carolina, my kids are required to take annual standardized testing in order to maintain our legal school status. This will be our first experience with it. I ordered our test, as I can administer it, and it will arrive early in April. I am not a fan (at all) of teaching kids to a test, and I think many schools do that, even as entire systems now. I don't. However, tests like these, whether I value them personally or not, will be a part of my daughter's life for better or worse. It's not a hill I'm ready to die on, so it's not worth fighting for. So, in preparation, I bought a test prep book, and every Friday until April we will practice.

I think this a benefit. Learn the rules of how to play the game. I remember doing this with the PSAT and then the SAT. They are worthless tests which don't measure accurately anything but your ability to take that particular test, but since they are a reality of the way many Universities try to separate wheat and chaff, learn to play. Ignoring it on principle only hurts yourself.

So, today was the first time we used our test prep book. And as my daughter's teacher, I actually found it valuable because it is confirming what I believed about her learning style and she's a literal miss. I mean, she takes everything literally. Facts are facts. She is concrete. She is not interested in too many flowery words to get to the point. She is, as it turns out, her mother's daughter. Exactly.

You see, when I was in 1st and 2nd grade myself (before we began homeschooling), I remember taking these tests, too. And I remember doing spectacularly, like testing at 10th grade and beyond levels (when I was 7), in certain subjects. But when it came to what they defined as "listening skills," I got below my age group. Why? Because I simply did not value the questions. I specifically remember being completely annoyed with the test administrator who, after reading this paragraph about a little girl playing outside, asked the question, "What color were her shoes?" I said out loud, "That wasn't the point." And I argued with her on how dumb I thought that question was, and I got crappy scores because of it. I'm pretty sure I remember replying, "I don't know. Red." I made it up. Because I didn't care, it wasn't the point.

So when I began this test prep with my own daughter, she gave me the same look I gave the administrator. She read the paragraphs (4 of them), and accurately answered every question except, "Why did the author write this?" She said out loud, while looking incredulously at me, "How am I supposed to know? I'm not her."

And you know what? She makes a lot of sense. There is no literal way of knowing why the author wrote their pieces. I do not think she is wrong in her assessment. However, she has to learn to play by the rules because, whether we value it or not, the test in April counts.

So, I will, for the next couple of months, teach her that it's just the game rules. Tests are games. Because they are. And Ava is absolutely her mother's daughter.

Is that title confusing? Maybe by the end of this it won't be.

I have had this topic burning in me for a very long time but it's just so caustic and no matter which "side" you are on, you may have feelings about it. Maybe hard feelings. That's ok. I'm compelled to write anyway, posessed. It's like the words are pouring out of my hands and I'm not editing them out for once.

I can't stand race pride. I don't care which race you are. I wonder if my perspective on this is because I'm white and I'm married to a black man and my children are a beautiful mix of the both of us. So because I see my children, I see clearly in an instant what I wish the world would see:

We are all mixed.

There is no such thing as black pride.
There is no such thing as white supremacy.

I recognize that there are other colors, other histories and blends out there. But I'm sticking with what I know, the examples that are before me and surround me everywhere.

When I see black men and women arguing with each other, trying to empower each other about their strong black histories, it sounds like racism to me. Not because they are degrading another race, but because they are defining humankind by the color of their skin. I read today on a facebook share (oh facebook, you creator of all things argumentative) the words of an impassioned woman which said that all education and knowledge, all philosophies, all wisdom came from her strong black heritage.

Why does it come from her black heritage? I assume she meant that the origination of humankind was in Africa. And that's the problem with these color pride (racist) enchantments. The people before us and the people who will come after us will be one thing - human. Just as they were and always will be. Did humankind originate in Africa? That's what we're taught, yes. Does that make everyone African? If so, then I'm as African as they are - as white and European as my more recent ancestry is.

To elevate oneself in this way is to denigrate the other. To say you are superior because of your color is to say another is inferior because of theirs. That is the definition of racism.

Whether it's white supremacy or black pride.

Neither of which have a place in my childrens' lives, nor do they have a place in mine. Because hate doesn't belong here.

We all come from one family, our ancestry is the brotherhood of humanity. Our bond is not our color, it's our blood.

Well I'll be damned, the Xanga team exists somewhere. I got a W2 from 'em today.