It occurred to me while commenting on TPMCafe's bonafide bloggers' posts that, while you will find no black Disney princesses for black girls to aspire to, as my daughter was able to aspire to the 5 or so caucasian princesses (she is 7 now and still aspires to Ariel the mermaid,) now black girls have real princesses to aspire to, living in the White House.

I did half of a teaching credential recently, backing out of the idea of teaching math for a few different reasons, as a career change, and I realized why teachers of color are so important for students of color.  At first, I rebelled, thinking that, since I was color blind, shouldn't everyone be color blind?  And it wouldn't matter if I was another white teacher?  Then I got it, and working as a substitute teacher I experienced it, that although the students of color harbored no resentment towards me, I could tell they were inherently hungry for teachers of their same race.  It is just the way it is.  Or quoting Rush Limbaugh -- I guess -- it is just the way it works.

I also learned of expectations affecting student performance.  It doesn't take high intellect or education to realize the connection between expectations and role models.  And so I am left with a HOPEful thought/prediction that performance of students of color, in particular african american students, will rise during the Obama Presidency.  It will be interesting to see how my prediction pans out.