Of Tasmanian Devils and Aborigines and Tails

The Tasmanian Devil is now an endangered species.  When I saw the headline, I was intrigued because I was only vaguely aware that the Tasmanian Devil was indeed a real animal as opposed to merely a character from a Warner Brothers cartoon.  When I read the article and looked at the images, I was surprised at how much creative license the cartoonist took when creating the character Taz.

The real Tasmanian Devil and Taz. You see the resemblance, don’t you?

The stakes weren’t so high in this misunderstanding, but it reminded me of another. And in the case of the latter, when I found out the truth I felt the cold spotlight of ignorance shining brightly down on me.

For third grade, I attended an inner-city public school and as is the case with most inner-city public schools, my classroom was overcrowded and my teacher was overworked. She would frequently shout in frustration, while banging her ruler against the desk, “Be quiet!! You all are acting like a bunch of wild aborigines!”

When we would ask Mrs. Cucci, what exactly an aborigine was, she told us to turn to page one sixteen in our social studies book. There in the bottom right hand corner of the page was a photo of an oil painting. The painting was of a man with dark skin. The painting captured the man in profile. He was standing under a tree, completely naked. He held a spear in one hand and a shield in the other. And he had a tail about 3 feet long .

After third grade, I never saw Mrs. Cucci again. And I never had another conversation about aborigines for the rest of my scholastic career.  As a matter of fact, I didn’t even hear the term aborigine again, until the 2000 Olympics, when Cathy Freeman was the name on everyone’s lips. When she won the 400 meter and people were talking about Cathy Freeman, the Aborigine, I was anxious to see a picture of her, because in my mind I wondered how she could run so fast with that long tail hanging behind her.

I was an adult when I thought this. And when I saw a picture of her and she didn’t have a tail, I thought for a long time that she had tucked it in.

What’s the point of this post? Teachers and parents and other adults of consequence have a tremendous amount of influence over the little humans in their care. Use it wisely.

And just in case you were hoping to see a picture of a man with a tail, here you go.