“WHY DO YOU HAVE TO BRING POLITICS INTO POLITICS?”

In a crowded Brooklyn elementary school the pigtailed art teacher who rode to school on a banana-seat bike with streamers on the handlebars introduced herself. She wrote on the board:

Mr.

Mrs.

Miss

“If you see Mr., do you know if he’s married? You don’t know. If you see Mrs., is she married? Yes. Is Miss married? No.” Then she wrote

Ms.

And under that, her name:

Ms. Powell

“I’m Ms. Powell. Not Mrs., not Miss. Because whether or not I’m married is none of your damn business.” Got it.

She was great and wild. She saw that most of us came to school with frantically assembled school supplies. Bits and bobs of crayons in plastic bags that did not zip lock. Ms. Powell went to her stash of crayons, broke them in half, redistributing halves to the have-nots. She taught us art. We loved her.

One day the assistant principal barged into the classroom, no knock, no “‘scuse me.” Total dick. After all, we’re just a woman and children and he’s a Mr.

“Miss Powell…”

In unison: “Ms!”

“Oh right, Mizzz.” He was all eye roll, and shoulder shrug. He repeated “Mizzzzz Powell” a couple of times in a mocking, exaggerated way, gave her some papers and left.

By the end of the day, the kid in the class who would go on to hotwire a car and drive it through the schoolyard trying to mow us down was called in to that assistant principal’s office for allegedly “taking the air out of his tyuhs.” In every sense, though.

To me, the assistant principal is the quintessential “Why you gotta make it about politics?” person. The variant is “Why do you have to bring politics into it?” In both sentences, what exactly is it? Is it anything other than politics?

“Why you gotta make politics about politics?”

“Why do you have to bring your politics into my politics?”

We call it politics when you call out politics.