The Empty Chair
October 9, 2022 8:35 AM Subscribe
"You don't understand. There aren't any more chairs" made me want to go back in time and smack someone so hard.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:30 AM on October 9, 2022 [24 favorites]
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:30 AM on October 9, 2022 [24 favorites]
Lee Atwater was an American political consultant and Republican party strategist. He was an advisor of 40th U.S. President Ronald Reagan, the campaign manager for 41st U.S. President George H. W. Bush, and Chairman of the Republican National Committee. He's known for this quote:
"You start out in 1954 by saying, "N*****, n*****, n*****." By 1968 you can't say "n*****"—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "N*****, n*****.""
posted by AlSweigart at 10:39 AM on October 9, 2022 [17 favorites]
"You start out in 1954 by saying, "N*****, n*****, n*****." By 1968 you can't say "n*****"—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "N*****, n*****.""
posted by AlSweigart at 10:39 AM on October 9, 2022 [17 favorites]
I don't know. I was expecting this article to go on to tell us more about Archie, or about the experience of non-privileged kids but it kinda stayed with the teacher.
posted by M. at 11:01 AM on October 9, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by M. at 11:01 AM on October 9, 2022 [4 favorites]
Like M., I wondered about the Archie half of this. There’s no guarantee that, if CBS had found him alive, it would have made for a nice story. How would it actually feel to get that phone call? How would he have been treated on set? And of course the fact that he has died of COVID while his childhood friend is still hale enough to teach children well past retirement age is just a whole damn pandemic in microcosm.
I don’t mean to crap on the article; I’m glad I read it. Highlighting one white person’s efforts to be welcoming feels distorting, and not-enough, but it’s better than a lot of the conversation around schools and race in America, which has trended toward the “urgency of White normal” over the last couple of years to a really disturbing degree: can’t say anything that might shine a light on injustice because then the important people’s children might have to be sad.
posted by eirias at 11:30 AM on October 9, 2022 [10 favorites]
I don’t mean to crap on the article; I’m glad I read it. Highlighting one white person’s efforts to be welcoming feels distorting, and not-enough, but it’s better than a lot of the conversation around schools and race in America, which has trended toward the “urgency of White normal” over the last couple of years to a really disturbing degree: can’t say anything that might shine a light on injustice because then the important people’s children might have to be sad.
posted by eirias at 11:30 AM on October 9, 2022 [10 favorites]
I clicked on the clickbait headline so you don't have to:
the empty chair is a metaphor for "anyone welcome" and is based on an anecdote from the teacher's childhood in which a bigoted person tries to exclude a black child by claiming that there aren't enough chairs.
posted by McNulty at 11:36 AM on October 9, 2022 [50 favorites]
the empty chair is a metaphor for "anyone welcome" and is based on an anecdote from the teacher's childhood in which a bigoted person tries to exclude a black child by claiming that there aren't enough chairs.
posted by McNulty at 11:36 AM on October 9, 2022 [50 favorites]
I am really glad to have gotten to read this article.
It's inspiring to me - in the way so many quiet acts of ordinary people so often inspire me - to read about this one person, and not just the chair - which is a metaphor for exclusion and lost opportunity, but is also a metaphor for a lifetime of work to make his community and his nation better, merely the most visible and tangible piece of that work - not just the chair, but all the things he did, throughout his life, which he seems to have considered just the ordinary work that we all should be doing, and that he chose to do whether others did or not.
May Kasahara, thank you very much for posting this. My life is a bit better, and my dedication to acting as a good citizen in a democracy a little stronger, for reading about Daniel Gill - for his 53 years of teaching young people about civics and democracy, and for your taking a moment to share that life with all of us here.
posted by kristi at 12:26 PM on October 9, 2022 [20 favorites]
It's inspiring to me - in the way so many quiet acts of ordinary people so often inspire me - to read about this one person, and not just the chair - which is a metaphor for exclusion and lost opportunity, but is also a metaphor for a lifetime of work to make his community and his nation better, merely the most visible and tangible piece of that work - not just the chair, but all the things he did, throughout his life, which he seems to have considered just the ordinary work that we all should be doing, and that he chose to do whether others did or not.
When Gill took a teaching job in the district, the Montclair public schools were “diverse but not integrated,” he said.There are people I can name here on MetaFilter who have inspired me in the same way, who seem to live their lives contemplating, every day, what it means to be a good citizen in a democracy, and striving to act in accordance. And there are stories posted to MetaFilter from time to time that introduce me to more of these people.
The township’s initial attempts at desegregation through busing were “a disaster,” he said. But Gill got involved in the planning for what proved to be a solution: a magnet school system set up in the late 1970s that allowed students to go to schools outside their neighborhoods and remains in place today.
“I wanted to be in this community and I wanted to help this community,” said Gill, who settled in Montclair, got married and raised his own family. “And I was given the opportunity to be a decision-maker.”
Gill spent the first seven years of his career in Montclair at Hillside School, and the next 46 years at Glenfield. He’s been teaching since the days when Richard Nixon was president, “living in the question” he likes to say, of what it means to be a good citizen in a democracy, and how to act.
May Kasahara, thank you very much for posting this. My life is a bit better, and my dedication to acting as a good citizen in a democracy a little stronger, for reading about Daniel Gill - for his 53 years of teaching young people about civics and democracy, and for your taking a moment to share that life with all of us here.
posted by kristi at 12:26 PM on October 9, 2022 [20 favorites]
> I clicked on the clickbait headline so you don't have to
appreciate you. a few years ago i noticed the trend and since then adopted a guideline that basically any headline with the word "this" in it is clickbait. i'd say it works 99% of the time.
posted by glonous keming at 12:45 PM on October 9, 2022 [9 favorites]
appreciate you. a few years ago i noticed the trend and since then adopted a guideline that basically any headline with the word "this" in it is clickbait. i'd say it works 99% of the time.
posted by glonous keming at 12:45 PM on October 9, 2022 [9 favorites]
The anecdote is heartwarming but I wish the teacher had tried to get in touch with his childhood friend at any time before CBS tried to reunite them. The part that makes me squirm is the whiff of inspiration porn. I get that this is a white guy talking to other white folks but the absolute deprotagonization of the Black kid in a story about bigotry against him does have that icky feeling regarding both race/ethnicity and, er, the associated marketing segmentation of nj dot com.
basically any headline with the word "this" in it is clickbait
I'm going to have to adopt this rule going forward.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 2:09 PM on October 9, 2022 [8 favorites]
basically any headline with the word "this" in it is clickbait
I'm going to have to adopt this rule going forward.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 2:09 PM on October 9, 2022 [8 favorites]
I admit I personally found the comment about a time sink puzzling. I come here looking for a time sink. A thousand tiny time sinks spurring tiny conversations. Am I doing it wrong?
posted by eirias at 4:08 PM on October 9, 2022 [15 favorites]
posted by eirias at 4:08 PM on October 9, 2022 [15 favorites]
glonous keming: it's a fine story but it's a clickbait ass headline.
From the FAQ you didn't read:
brachiopod: the vague, clickbait title is a problem
The title of the post is the title of the article. That's a pretty common practice here.
posted by tzikeh at 4:12 PM on October 9, 2022 [8 favorites]
From the FAQ you didn't read:
What makes a good front page post to MetaFilter?if you think this post is "clickbait," then you think the purpose of a good MetaFilter post is to share "clickbait."
According to the guidelines page "A good post to MetaFilter is something that meets the following criteria: most people haven't seen it before, there is something interesting about the content on the page, and it might warrant discussion from others." Posts shouldn't be terribly long, and they don't have to contain multiple links or end with a discussion-sparking question.
brachiopod: the vague, clickbait title is a problem
The title of the post is the title of the article. That's a pretty common practice here.
posted by tzikeh at 4:12 PM on October 9, 2022 [8 favorites]
(Headline writers are gonna write headlines. That's the business, and it has been for a very long time.
nj.com is owned by the same company that owns the Newark Star-Ledger, which I've heard of because of The Sopranos, and a bunch of other newspapers (and also Condé Nast, of New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Teen Vogue, Pitchfork, etc. fame).
Other articles on the front page of nj.com include 'New Jersey’s best Korean barbecue restaurants' and 'N.J.’s 33 best small towns, ranked, for the ultimate fall day trip.')
posted by box at 4:16 PM on October 9, 2022
nj.com is owned by the same company that owns the Newark Star-Ledger, which I've heard of because of The Sopranos, and a bunch of other newspapers (and also Condé Nast, of New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Teen Vogue, Pitchfork, etc. fame).
Other articles on the front page of nj.com include 'New Jersey’s best Korean barbecue restaurants' and 'N.J.’s 33 best small towns, ranked, for the ultimate fall day trip.')
posted by box at 4:16 PM on October 9, 2022
Anyway, back to the article.....
Are there cases of other teachers doing the same thing? I hadn't heard of them.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:22 PM on October 9, 2022
Are there cases of other teachers doing the same thing? I hadn't heard of them.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:22 PM on October 9, 2022
What I like about this story isn't that the chair is empty symbolism, but that Daniel Gill spent his teaching career doing something to make sure there were enough chairs.
I'm on a teaching hiatus at the moment as I care for my own small ones, but stories like this remind me of my broader purpose in education.
posted by freethefeet at 4:47 PM on October 9, 2022 [9 favorites]
I'm on a teaching hiatus at the moment as I care for my own small ones, but stories like this remind me of my broader purpose in education.
posted by freethefeet at 4:47 PM on October 9, 2022 [9 favorites]
Are there cases of other teachers doing the same thing? I hadn't heard of them.
More gratifying, Gill said, is that two schools have called to tell him that they plan to set up empty chairs in their buildings. One school is in Iowa and the other is in Montreal, he said.posted by aniola at 4:47 PM on October 9, 2022
I haven't been around for too long in the grand scheme of things, but I believe that we are meant to "take it to MetaTalk" if I have the lingo right? In any case, I appreciated having been spared the click.
I hope coverage of this story remains limited --- I'm surprised by how plausible I find the eventuality of various state legislatures banning chairs in public schools.
posted by tss at 5:31 PM on October 9, 2022 [3 favorites]
I hope coverage of this story remains limited --- I'm surprised by how plausible I find the eventuality of various state legislatures banning chairs in public schools.
posted by tss at 5:31 PM on October 9, 2022 [3 favorites]
And then there were those who insisted that if you weren't born in the town you could never call yourself a localThere's a joke about Australian country towns, and like all the best jokes has a cruel kernel of reality in the middle, about so-and-so who has trouble making friends in the community, even though they were born there, went to school and worked all their life there, is in the local country fire brigade, has four grandparents buried in the local cemetery, but, you know, they were blow-ins.
Anyway, whatever, good post.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 5:41 PM on October 9, 2022 [1 favorite]
Metafilter: Flag it and move on
posted by Ickster at 6:14 PM on October 9, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by Ickster at 6:14 PM on October 9, 2022 [3 favorites]
And they wonder why veteran MeFites are abandoning ship.
Since we are doing this here, complaining about Mystery Meat posts is a long and time honored tradition around here that dates back at least to 2002.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 6:35 PM on October 9, 2022 [11 favorites]
Since we are doing this here, complaining about Mystery Meat posts is a long and time honored tradition around here that dates back at least to 2002.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 6:35 PM on October 9, 2022 [11 favorites]
Not about how long you've been here, let's not do that either, but sheesh, what happened to not crapping on FPPs? Right, and you wonder why no one is posting much. Might as well just close the damn place if this is how it's gonna be. Back to the post, yes there can be valid criticisms but it's also first if all a heartwarming story and a step in the right direction.
posted by blue shadows at 8:03 PM on October 9, 2022 [21 favorites]
posted by blue shadows at 8:03 PM on October 9, 2022 [21 favorites]
To truly appreciate what Daniel Gill has done in his 53 years of teaching
Wow! This is where I get a hitch in my step right off the hop. I'm a 57 year old white male teacher and I've just retired (this year in June, in Canada) after a 32 year career in the high school classroom, and I just can't imagine doing another 21 in any reasonably effective way. Competent? Sure. Effective? I dunno.
This is not to say that I quit because I was stinking it up (people said a lot of nice things (as they do)). It was going well, but it looked to me that with the kids, well, being what they are today (and me being 57!), I was just always already on the back foot, and no matter how with-it or cool I tried to be (and frankly trying to be cool is a recipe for disaster, so yeah, not that), or how competent and enthusiastic I was, I was just, well ... always on the back foot. And, I was a white male in a high school classroom. There are enough of those around.
I'd been thinking about this for a few years already when a former student asked to be a student teacher in my classroom for her final year. And that was it. I knew I had to get out of my chair, so there was room for her to get in it. (Which she did! She got my job while she was doing her student teaching practicum with me!)
Which is to say that I think that some of the chairs that need to be emptied, and filled, in so many classrooms these days are those of older white male teachers'. We need younger teachers. We need female teachers. We need bipoc and queer teachers. When this happens the empty chair metaphor might not be as necessary, because kids will be taught by the people who might have needed that chair when they were students, and now that they have it they're going to make sure their classroom is open and welcoming all the time - whether we sit in chairs or not.
Anyway, good on you Daniel for hanging in there for so long. That's something. I wish you a happy retirement. But (wincing a bit) maybe the chair you should have left open was your own - a few years back.
posted by kneecapped at 8:06 PM on October 9, 2022 [18 favorites]
Wow! This is where I get a hitch in my step right off the hop. I'm a 57 year old white male teacher and I've just retired (this year in June, in Canada) after a 32 year career in the high school classroom, and I just can't imagine doing another 21 in any reasonably effective way. Competent? Sure. Effective? I dunno.
This is not to say that I quit because I was stinking it up (people said a lot of nice things (as they do)). It was going well, but it looked to me that with the kids, well, being what they are today (and me being 57!), I was just always already on the back foot, and no matter how with-it or cool I tried to be (and frankly trying to be cool is a recipe for disaster, so yeah, not that), or how competent and enthusiastic I was, I was just, well ... always on the back foot. And, I was a white male in a high school classroom. There are enough of those around.
I'd been thinking about this for a few years already when a former student asked to be a student teacher in my classroom for her final year. And that was it. I knew I had to get out of my chair, so there was room for her to get in it. (Which she did! She got my job while she was doing her student teaching practicum with me!)
Which is to say that I think that some of the chairs that need to be emptied, and filled, in so many classrooms these days are those of older white male teachers'. We need younger teachers. We need female teachers. We need bipoc and queer teachers. When this happens the empty chair metaphor might not be as necessary, because kids will be taught by the people who might have needed that chair when they were students, and now that they have it they're going to make sure their classroom is open and welcoming all the time - whether we sit in chairs or not.
Anyway, good on you Daniel for hanging in there for so long. That's something. I wish you a happy retirement. But (wincing a bit) maybe the chair you should have left open was your own - a few years back.
posted by kneecapped at 8:06 PM on October 9, 2022 [18 favorites]
Mod note: A few deleted. Take it to metatalk if you don't like the title, or other people's commentary about the title.
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 8:25 PM on October 9, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 8:25 PM on October 9, 2022 [8 favorites]
Yeah, I don't want to take away from the gesture of the empty chair, because it's a positive thing if only so it can act as a reason to start a conversation about racism and privilege, but that's really all it is and it sounds like that's all it was ever meant to be. It's not really going to work as a broader gesture, because it needs that personal story to back it up. I admire anyone who can stand at the front of a classroom for 53 years and it's a nice little story about one teacher's attempt to make the world a better place one class at a time, but that's all it is. Which is perfectly OK - not every story needs to be earth-shattering.
posted by dg at 10:41 PM on October 9, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by dg at 10:41 PM on October 9, 2022 [4 favorites]
“So, Gill fetched the chair that he wasn’t allowed to fetch for Archie. Now, the chair would be for anyone and everyone. … Some kids get the symbolism at first, others don’t. And some take more time, Gill said. [p] … “If you can hold onto a metaphor, it can help you understand more complex ideas and also to act.”
I’m a proponent of semiotics. It’s not taught in US schools, and this passage partly demonstrates why I believe this.
So often the case New School branch of criticism just throws around word salad when a semiotic concept would be more succinct and evocative. Typically, when you say this, one might say metaphor works fine by itself to communicate the idea, but here are also ‘symbolism’ and ‘complexity’.
The chair is not complex. Instead of referring to the utility of seating, it refers to the child’s blackness. What’s complex about that?
posted by xtian at 4:37 AM on October 10, 2022
I’m a proponent of semiotics. It’s not taught in US schools, and this passage partly demonstrates why I believe this.
So often the case New School branch of criticism just throws around word salad when a semiotic concept would be more succinct and evocative. Typically, when you say this, one might say metaphor works fine by itself to communicate the idea, but here are also ‘symbolism’ and ‘complexity’.
The chair is not complex. Instead of referring to the utility of seating, it refers to the child’s blackness. What’s complex about that?
posted by xtian at 4:37 AM on October 10, 2022
"You don't understand. There aren't any more chairs" made me want to go back in time and smack someone so hard.
This is what infuriates me about so many racists. They know at some level that it is wrong, so they don’t come right out and say that they are being racists; they come up with some cowardly excuse for mistreating others. But even though they know it is wrong, they still do it.
posted by TedW at 5:51 AM on October 10, 2022 [3 favorites]
This is what infuriates me about so many racists. They know at some level that it is wrong, so they don’t come right out and say that they are being racists; they come up with some cowardly excuse for mistreating others. But even though they know it is wrong, they still do it.
posted by TedW at 5:51 AM on October 10, 2022 [3 favorites]
Just noting for the record that I'm down for a movie or story featuring a time travelling jenfullmoon dispensing racial justice one slap at a time.
posted by Larry David Syndrome at 6:02 AM on October 10, 2022 [10 favorites]
posted by Larry David Syndrome at 6:02 AM on October 10, 2022 [10 favorites]
I mean, I like this idea in general, especially with the other work he was doing. But people complaining about it, I guess you've always been in classes with enough chairs? Having an extra chair just in case sounds great if a district can afford it because what that means is they've got enough chairs for everyone to sit in at all, which I can tell you was not always the case at my high school.
posted by blueberry monster at 10:01 AM on October 10, 2022
posted by blueberry monster at 10:01 AM on October 10, 2022
My best friend from kindergarten to high school was of Puerto Rican descent with African features. Neither of us really thought about it at all but I'm sure others sure did and we just didn't notice.
I haven't talked to him in decades and can't find him online due to him having the most common name you can imagine but, maybe someday I'll find him and ask him what he remembers.
posted by tommasz at 10:34 AM on October 10, 2022
I haven't talked to him in decades and can't find him online due to him having the most common name you can imagine but, maybe someday I'll find him and ask him what he remembers.
posted by tommasz at 10:34 AM on October 10, 2022
It's not really going to work as a broader gesture, because it needs that personal story to back it up.
Introduce chair. Introduce story of chair. Tell your own personal story about racism. Everybody has a story.
posted by aniola at 10:39 AM on October 10, 2022 [2 favorites]
Introduce chair. Introduce story of chair. Tell your own personal story about racism. Everybody has a story.
posted by aniola at 10:39 AM on October 10, 2022 [2 favorites]
it's a nice little story about one teacher's attempt to make the world a better place one class at a time, but that's all it is.
I’m 47 years old and in my second semester as a high school industrial tech teacher. Believe me, I’m very aware that I’m straight, white, male, middle-aged and deeply, deeply uncool. I’m not enough in so many ways that some days my head spins. I know my privilege keeps me from connecting with some of my students more effectively and I will probably lose them.
But you know what? I’m doing it because who will if I don’t? The perfect teacher doesn’t exist and there is a generation of kids who need someone right now.
Nobody on Metafilter is going to change the world. We’re each too small and insignificant. But we will change the world of the people around us.
One classroom at a time isn’t “not much”.
It’s a fucking start. And that’s everything.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 10:12 PM on October 10, 2022 [9 favorites]
I’m 47 years old and in my second semester as a high school industrial tech teacher. Believe me, I’m very aware that I’m straight, white, male, middle-aged and deeply, deeply uncool. I’m not enough in so many ways that some days my head spins. I know my privilege keeps me from connecting with some of my students more effectively and I will probably lose them.
But you know what? I’m doing it because who will if I don’t? The perfect teacher doesn’t exist and there is a generation of kids who need someone right now.
Nobody on Metafilter is going to change the world. We’re each too small and insignificant. But we will change the world of the people around us.
One classroom at a time isn’t “not much”.
It’s a fucking start. And that’s everything.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 10:12 PM on October 10, 2022 [9 favorites]
Absolutely, one classroom at a time is not only all one person can do, but it's also a big deal. I never mentioned 'not much' anywhere, but was referring to the idea of an empty chair being taken up by other schools - it's useless without the personal story that it represents and just sticking an empty chair in a classroom without that makes it an empty symbol. Not everything has to be some kind of world-wide movement.
I wish you all the best in your teaching career - the fact that you're aware of your privilege and the challenge of truly connecting with your students puts you streets ahead of most teachers, in my experience.
posted by dg at 11:49 PM on October 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
I wish you all the best in your teaching career - the fact that you're aware of your privilege and the challenge of truly connecting with your students puts you streets ahead of most teachers, in my experience.
posted by dg at 11:49 PM on October 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
A lot of you are echoing a feeling I've felt deeply in the last month, which hit me one morning as I finished "You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train" by Howard Zinn. These are the closing words of the book. Any transcription errors are mine, it was an audio book and I don't have a physical copy handy.
"Revolutionary change does not come as one cataclysmic moment - beware of such moments - but as an endless succession of surprises, moving zig-zag towards a more decent society.
We don't have to engage in grand heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world.
[...]
If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places - and there are so many - where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.
And if we do act, in however small a way, we don't have to wait for some grant utopian future; the future is an infinite succession of presents. And to live now, as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory."
posted by jermsplan at 11:52 AM on October 11, 2022 [7 favorites]
"Revolutionary change does not come as one cataclysmic moment - beware of such moments - but as an endless succession of surprises, moving zig-zag towards a more decent society.
We don't have to engage in grand heroic actions to participate in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied by millions of people, can transform the world.
[...]
If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places - and there are so many - where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.
And if we do act, in however small a way, we don't have to wait for some grant utopian future; the future is an infinite succession of presents. And to live now, as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory."
posted by jermsplan at 11:52 AM on October 11, 2022 [7 favorites]
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