Michelle Perkins-Ball: "I assure you I am real."

Some of you may have seen the earlier post about the letter from a Canadian visitor who laid out what she saw as Cincinnati's ills.

Now that writer - Toronto teacher Michelle Perkins-Ball - has posted her own comment, and responded to an email.

What she had to say in her comment:

Hi,This is Michelle Perkins-Ball from Toronto writing.

I just received an e-mail from a Mr. Weiser and my husband suggested I google my name and Cincinnati. This site came up. I want to assure people that I do indeed exist, that I am a high school teacher and that the reason I/we drove to Cincinnati was to check out the city and the National Freedom Centre before bringing my students this fall.

Why? I teach an African-Canadian Heritage Course and there is an Ontario based connection in the Museum to the curriculum I teach.

This would have been a great opportunity for my students to travel, related to the course. My intention in writing my letter was to highlight my/our experience of the visit and to share it with people in Cincinnati. It is obvious some people can relate to what I've said.

This is the most important point. In addition, I had never seen the abbreviation OTR before I saw it/heard it on the news for 3 nights, a police project related to drugs in "OTR". These are the initials that the news report put up in big letters during the newscast .

We also saw these initials in a local paper which spoke of drugs and police projects in OTR. In reading the responses to my letter, I wonder why people are suggesting someone is anonymously writing? Perhaps these issues are coming up regularly in Cincinnati?

I am not pointing fingers at any one specific group. As I wrote in the initial letter, I realize that the problems faced are complex. However, I think before they can be addressed as a community, there needs to be a willingness, however unpleasant, to recognize some of the root causes. One of them, I unapologetically believe, is racism.

Not that this should matter, or be of any importance as related to my letter, but for those who are interested in these types of things, my husband and I are middle-class "white folks".

Here is a response to an email we sent her:

Hi Mr. Weiser,
I'm sorry I didn't respond sooner.

Your e-mail was directed to my junk-mail file so I just opened it today.

I am glad to tell you a bit more about myself. I am a secondary school teacher at an inner-city school in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. I have been teaching high school for a decade and I am 40 years old. I am white. I have been married for 16 years.

My husband is white. I teach all grade levels of high school and one of the courses I teach is called African-Canadian Heritage, a Black History Course from a Canadian perspective. I saw the need for this at my school and was part of a writing team to create this locally deveoped course for my Board. I heard about the National Underground Railroad Freedom Centre, first I think, on the Oprah show.

Then I spent last year learning more about it online and raising some funds to take this year's class on an overnight trip there (3 days, we planned) . I thought it would be great because of the connection to Ontario and the information we learn in the class.

I always try to first check out places I will bring my students, mainly for safety reasons. That's why my husband and I drove down to Cincinnati a few weeks ago. We stayed downtown in the Garfield Suites. The African American woman I met was named Diane and we met her at a submarine sandwich store downtown. I think it was Subway?

I can't remember. My husband and I wrote the letter just after we returned and I sent a copy to the National Underground Railroad Freedom Centre because I wanted them to know why I wasn't returning. I received a nice letter back from a Mr. Britton. I have never had any connection to the Museum or Cincinnati before this trip, other than a phone call to the front desk asking for information about the Museum and group trips.

I assure you I am real. The letter expresses the thoughts and feelings of my husband and I and are related to a few days in Cincinnati and limited to our experiences. Nevertheless, I had enough of a taste to think that my mainly Black students would not find the trip there very welcoming, overall. I regret this to be my/our experience, but I think it's important to address such issues, as I wonder what it would feel like to be a Black teen in Cincinnati, and I see part of my calling as a teacher to be an advocate for those I love, my students.

We're going on another trip instead. However, I'm glad to learn that the letter has created dialogue. Perhaps it is easier for an outsider to write of these issues? I would be interested in reading some of the dialogue that resulted if you would be willing to e-mail me?

Thanks so much for taking the time to write to me. I look forward to hearing from you and wish you and your colleagues a good day.

Sincerely,

Michelle Perkins-Ball, Toronto