The Boarding School

Founding Fathers

 Katelyn put her finger to her lips and motioned to the side room. Without a word, Aiden slipped into it with the bowl and toast and utensils and shut the door. "Just a moment," Katelyn called, glancing at the clock. Eight in the morning, on the dot. She grabbed her phone and said, "Hey, I'm sorry, I'll call you back later... yeah... yeah... no don't worry about it. Alright..." she opened the door and smiled at McKenna and motioned for her to come in, saying, "Great, talk to you later. Bye." She 'hung up' the phone and slipped it into her back pocket. "Good morning."

"Good morning. Did I interrupted something?"

"No," Katelyn shook her head with a laugh, "No, I was just," she felt her back pocket, "Talking - to Scott."

McKenna shrugged, "It just sounded like someone was in here." She glanced towards the closet doors.

"Oh?" Katelyn shook her head and turned to take her dishes off the table, silently thanking God that Aiden remembered to take his with him, "I use speaker phone when I am talking to people alone. That's probably what you heard."

"That's probably it," McKenna's face broke into a relieved smile. Katelyn cleared the table and motioned to a chair. McKenna sat down and placed some books on the table, "I want to write about the founding fathers for my paper and wanted to explore the racist foundation of their policies and politics."

Katelyn pulled out a chair and sat down, her mind still on the fugitive in the side room. "The racist foundation?" She shook her head, "The founding fathers had racist leanings because of their culture and time period, but to say that America's policies and politics had a foundation based on racism is a bit of a generalization. They were influenced by it, for certain, but it was not the foundation."

"I don't understand what you mean. If they were racists, how was it not the foundation?"

Katelyn thought a moment. She didn't believe in giving answers the students could think up for themselves - she just needed to think of a way to help McKenna reach her own conclusions. "What would you consider a foundation?"

"Excuse me?"

"Let's say racism and misogyny - which I assume you are also considering -" she nodded "- were the foundation America. What does that mean?"

"They're goal was to ensure their superiority?" McKenna suggested, "And oppress others unlike themselves because they believed in their inferiority."

"Alright, good start," Katelyn nodded, wondering where to go with this. An idea jumped into her head. "You were saying in class the other day that Caucasians were inherently racist?" McKenna nodded. "And you are now saying that because the founding father's were racist, whether because of the time or because of they were white, the foundation of this country must be built on racism?" She nodded again. "So, in a way, you are saying that if someone is racist than everything they touch is immediately founded in that racism? Which means anything you make, any foundation you create, will be, no matter what, a racism steeped organization." Which, Katelyn thought to herself, leads to the argument that all this "equality" platitudes pushed mostly by the white elite must be racist and oppressive, too, since the advocates were white - a conclusion she partly agreed with, though the logic path to it was misplaced.

"Wait," McKenna protested, "No."

"No?"

"I mean, that's not what I said."

"But you said that white people are inherently racist, and the founding father's were white, so therefore they are racist. And before that you didn't understand how America's foundation could not be built on racism if they were racist, implying that if you're racist, what you build must be steeped in racism, too."