“Are you sure that is your friend?”
As a young child, I attended a very small elementary school. The racial mix of students was black and
white only. In order to maintain
discipline before school took in, our principal would assign children to “take
names.” That is, take names of the
students who didn’t obey the rules. When
I knew he would choose a student for that task, I always raised my hand to be
called upon. Much to my surprise, I was
never called upon. Each time, I would
raise my hand thinking I would one day have the opportunity. I was never ever called upon. Years later, it
was brought to my attention the only students who were called upon to "take
names" were white or light complexioned students. I was being discriminated
against and didn’t even know it. I
realized that discrimination existed but I never thought my, “black” principal
would be a part of such a discriminatory act. By the way, he was light
complexion and most of the students would say that he was white.
In high school, I was very good friends with Stacy. We did everything together- played in the
band, were members of the flag corps, played sports and talked on the phone all
of the time. I was raised be a single
Black hardworking mother. Stacy benefited from
a SNAP, which also included her grandparents.
They owned a gas station. One day Stacy and I were going out of town to
a festival. Before we were to leave, Stacy’s dad had promised to fill up our
car if I agreed to drive. (Gas was only
about $1.40 per gallon.) When I approached the house/gas station, Stacy
filled the car up with gas. Her
grandfather asked where is the money? Stacy said, “That is my friend Paw Paw.”
He said, “Are you sure that is your friend?” I realized that her grandfather
did not expect white Stacy to have a black friend.
In both examples, I was diminished as a person. First of all, I was demeaned because of my
dark complexion and secondly, a grandparent was not accepting of his
granddaughter having a Black friend. In
the school setting, I didn’t quite have any feelings because I didn’t initially
realize that I was being discriminated against.
When it was brought to my attention, I became angry because my mom openly
talked about people treating people the same. I would have done a great job
taking names because I knew how to tattle.
Taking names was just a glorified way to tattle.
When I think about a way to create a
greater opportunity for equity for each situation, I tried to give each
situation equal opportunity. First, I think the principal could have given each
group of children the opportunity to “take names.” Also, it should not have
bothered me because my main focus should have been to keep my name off of the list.
Secondly, I should have been proud that my friend spoke up for me and left it
as that. The grandfather should have
minded his own business. Even though we
did not pay for the gas on that day, my mother frequently patronized their gas
station because it was one of the few full service stations in our rural area.
