Hope White, newcomer to Sarasota. February 7, 2015; Herald Tribune/Carla Varisco photo

In the two years after her mother moved to San Diego when she was a child, Hope White attended a half-dozen schools. She remembers the day she came home from a new third-grade class and said to her mother, But Mom, that was so easy!

It was only much later, when she was pursuing a graduate degree in education at UCLA, that White realized she must have been placed into a lower-level class because of the color of her skin.

I knew it was race, says White, who has been searching for a position in her chosen field of education administration since arriving in Sarasota five months ago. It made me think about how a teachers perceptions can cause a student to succeed or fail.

Race wasnt something White, 34, was conscious of as a child. She grew up in a spiritual tradition known as Nichiren Daishonin Buddhism, a practice noted for its belief that all people are inherently capable of attaining enlightenment. Chanting, playing instruments and putting on performances within the communitys accepting atmosphere remain a fond part of her childhood memories.

We believe everyone has the opportunity to bring out their potential, says White, who immediately joined a local Nichiren group after moving here. Racism is alive and well and always will be, but I dont have to be influenced by it. I want to embrace as many people as possible. Thats what humanism is all about.

In the predominantly white area where she grew up, hers was the only African-American family on the block. But both her family and the sole Latino and Filipino families in the neighborhood were made to feel welcome.

When we all got together it was like a little United Nations, she remembers.

Though she wasnt forced into her spiritual practice, from the start Nicherin Buddhisms non-violent, inclusive philosophy appealed to her. But at her mothers insistence that it would be a resume builder, she enrolled in the military after high school. Stationed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina as a member of the airborne division, she says it took every ounce I had not to go AWOL.

I couldnt deal with training my body and mind to harm other people. I thought, if were going to have a military, lets make it a humanistic one that does construction, education. Creating value instead of destroying it.

Link:
Sunday profile: Eager to bring humanism to the classroom