Fascism, part I.

I first learned about fascism in the 6th grade, though I didn’t realize that was its name. I was in Mrs. Ellis’s class at Blanche Sprentz Elementary school in Folsom, California. (They still taught 6th grade back then.) Mrs. Ellis lived in Fair Oaks in a fairly posh neighborhood. I don’t think she had to teach, I think she just loved to. I have no idea how old she was, but I’m guessing she was in her early 60’s. She had that wise vibe about her. She saw things. She knew things. She was deeply aware and empathic. There was something sensitive, solid, and unshakeable about her. I have these memories of us gathering around her, us sitting on the floor and her sitting at the front of the room in a chair, or leaning against a table or desk. There was an intimacy of this casual conveyance of wisdom that had nothing to do with a specific class lesson. One day, as we gathered around, she said, ‘Everyone with blue – no, brown – eyes’ (she had caught my eye as one of the only students paying close attention and changed her experiment mid-sentence) ‘gets an extra 15 minutes of recess.’ Now I don’t remember if that was the exact form of preferential treatment she expressed, but you get my drift. I remember how lucky and special I felt in the moment. I literally thought I was better than my classmates who had blue eyes because I was “chosen.” It never occurred to me that I didn’t do anything to earn my brown eyes, but oh boy did I act like it was some sort of merit. Mrs. Ellis let us sit with that for a few minutes and feel the feelings. She let us – mostly the students without brown eyes – feel the unfairness of the subjective and arbitrary nature of her decision. There was a growing sense of discomfort and unease as the brown-eyed students tried to defend their position against the other-eyed students’ confusion. After maybe five minutes Mrs. Ellis came back and said, ‘You know, I’ve changed my mind. Everyone with blue eyes gets the extra 15 minutes of recess. Everyone else stays in.’ Wow, was that ever a mind flip. I went from feeling special and “chosen” to feeling arbitrarily shamed, rejected, and punished for something I had no control over. That was the moment I became deeply suspicious of any system based on arbitrary preference instead or merit.