![]() While shopping, I still assume that I am suspect. Now that I’m older, with a graying beard and significantly less hair on my head, I probably don’t need to keep up this routine, as I’m probably the cause of less suspicion, but the habit has stayed with me. I knew how to enter a store, to make eye contact with someone who worked there, to smile and say hello as if to say: “Don’t worry, I’m not trying to steal anything.” Somehow – I suppose from being followed in stores frequently – I learned not to carry books into a bookstore, not to walk through a store with bags that were not sealed or zippered shut, and so on. I became so well-practiced in the art of not offending racist white people that I ceased to become outraged by them, at least when they affected me directly. Looking back, I realize that, apart from my black armband episode, my survival strategy was to make myself as non-threatening as possible. Several of our teachers thought it was funny and even prompted our classmates to laugh at our expense: “Look at Jones,” one teacher said, “starting a revolution.” (Thank you, Mr I forget-your-name!) I became so well-practiced in the art of not offending racist white people that I ceased to become outraged by them This act earned me no greater respect, and actually greater ridicule. I convinced my best friend to wear black armbands in school to protest. I thought his punishment should have been more severe. The culprit – a white student – was quickly discovered, and all he had to do to get out of trouble was issue a lame apology. One year, one of the few black students at my high school found a noose hanging in his locker one day. One of my classmates had a gift for inventing creative ways to make fun of my kinky hair, and he got enough people laughing to send me home in tears for a good part of my freshman and sophomore years of high school. Much to my dismay, my blackness seemed to be the salient thing about me. Like many young black people, I internalized the idea that I would have be twice as good to get half as much respect. From what I could tell in movies and television shows – my principal sources of information – you had to be a rich and white to be worthy of love. In high school I started wondering, as teenagers do, how people go about finding romantic partners. ‘Like many young black people, I internalized the idea that I would have be twice as good to get half as much respect.’ Photograph: Steve Russell/Toronto Star via Getty Images So, thanks to my mother raising a fuss I had to give a speech to my entire middle school. I wasn’t chosen to give a speech to my middle school’s assembly, and so she inquired as to why I wasn’t chosen, and she insisted that I be given a shot. She monitored everything about my treatment in school, ready to leap at the slightest slight. She assumed that I would be the object of discrimination in school and maintained an intense, vigilant determination to protect me from it. (Thank you, Mrs Brooks!)Īs I got older, I observed that my mother saw racism around every corner. She taught us about discrimination and injustice and taught us to recite and interpret poetry from the black arts movement. Mrs Brooks decided it was OK if I squirmed in my chair. In third grade, I had my first black teacher and the whole dynamic changed. I got in trouble a lot, and one teacher actually wrote on my report card that I was “amoral”. In elementary school I got the distinct impression that teachers didn’t like me. Throughout my life, something – the kink of my hair or my “attitude” – would mark me as inferior, worthy of ridicule, humiliation or ostracism. ![]() ![]() I am “good” by America’s standards, or at least “better”: my skin is light, most of the time I dress like a middle-class professional and my manner of speech betrays a large degree of assimilation in the white American mainstream (for example, I use phrases like “manner of speech”).īut as many others have learned, there is no amount of assimilation that can shield you from racism in this country. In truth, though, the comment rings true. I remember the way this kind of backhanded compliment stung me, but it took me a long time to understand why it hurt. ![]()
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