I’m in. I have no idea where this is going. But who does?
If you believe me to be a line crosser, then perhaps I am, though I’ve never thought of myself that way. I am genuinely curious how people have arrived at positions far different than mine.
I theorize that most people (though clearly not all) like to think of themselves as moral actors. Of course we all slip up and have our hypocrisies, but, from my experience, people like to think of themselves as good. So how can one person’s good be another person’s bad? I want to think about that, and I want others to reflect on it as well.
My belief is we only grow through personal reflection, and that’s not going to happen if someone is yelling at us.
Another reason I’m interested is because I remember the day when I felt the race line drawn across my life. It was when my little, local school class was dumped into the big, multi-town school. We were all about 12 to 13 years old.
First day, lunch. That’s when it happened.
We filed into the cafeteria, a little overwhelmed and not knowing what to expect. Lots of new kids. Lots of older kids. It felt safest to try and sit with the friends you knew from home. But no.
The word came down from the older black kids that the new black kids had to sit at their table. And that was that. Done. The end. We never sat together again.
You don’t mess with older kids. Not if you know what’s good for you.
It was stunning. To me anyway. But nobody talked about it. Challenging it was out of the question. It just was.
When I think about race, I think about that day. I can come up with explanations for it, but they’d all be speculation. I never quizzed anyone on the why.
I still wonder how things might be different if that day had been different, if that day hadn’t been repeated in so many permutations in so many childhoods.
That’s why I’m interested.
