Crazy at 17

If you had an African American friend growing up, did your teacher treat them the same way he or she treated European American students? Victor was my childhood best friend. He was of African descent; he was also the class clown and wore his spankings like badges. Some might say we are only sensitive to our own pain as a child. To an extent, I believe this to be true. This might explain why I dont remember if he was treated differently in school, and why I never reacted much to his being treated differently by my own family. Hes not around to ask these days. Heres my take on interracial friendships.

At age 11, I joined a little league baseball team. That is how I got to know Victor. Our coach didnt treat us any differently. In fact, Victor had privilege. Plain and simply put, he was better then the rest of us. Because of it, he started first base, batted cleanup, and I learned to pitch. Malanowski, in a 2002 NY Times column, talked about the boon of black-and-white buddy movies like Die Hard, Shawshank Redemption, and Men in Black, that pair a white friend with a black one. This is a lucrative strategy for the box office. Incidentally, its one of the nobler aspects of Hollywood to unite different races in a common quest. Whatever the intent, Victor and I were like Danny Glover and Bruce Willis. We played hard, stuck together, and if we had anything to say, would die hard.

I dont remember a Black History Month in grade school. I dont remember any racial education. Brammer wonders if the fact that we dont recall the typical differential treatment of our former black friends is evidence of our own indifference. It was our schools one black teacher who left the most indelible mark on me. She said, Once poor, you will always be poor. It stands out because I remember waiting for her to tell me she was kidding, laugh, or ask me to rebut her. She didnt, and I couldnt. She dismissed me, and that was that. I doubt the rich kids were any more aware of my oppression than I was of similar comments made to African Americans by white teachers. Ignorance or indifference, it possesses the same sting. We feel our own pain best.

About the time of Alex Haleys publication, Roots, which my mother purchased and read to us after PBS aired its made-for-TV miniseries, teachers began offering a few examples of strong African Americans, here and there. Soon, the strong black images were replaced by old, wounded images of Kunta Kinte. Around the same time, it seems like they dropped the simultaneous examples of helpful whites. Gone were the heroic aspects of Kintes struggle and those of the white abolitionist. With such glaring omissions, its no wonder, Beverly Tatum (1999) expounds, the white children sat frozen in a haze of guilt and the black children, uncomfortably in the shame of victimization. She writes,

The Africans who were brought here as slaves were not all passive victims, and all whites were not bad.

She implores the educational system to provide concrete examples of each.

Nearing high school, Victor and I recalled our old days of playing baseball, staying out late, peeping in windows and stealing dirty magazines. We didnt lament our fatherlessness. Like our school paddlings, we glorified our struggles and cursed the wind as we rode on, chiding our mothers for missing so many of our games despite our own sin.

Once, an aunt and uncle pulled into my driveway to drop me off after we had won. Victor wasnt invited, and he walked home. With a mouthful of french fries, I exited the car to see Victors mom running out the back door of our home. Shortly, my mother was receiving the family lecture of dont be seen with them and you wont be bothered by them, referring to the problem we had been having with the neighborhood black boys flirting with my beautiful, blonde haired aryan sister. The only ones I knew that were peeking in windows were Victor and myself.

Rapidly, the truth began to blur into fantasy. My father quit calling, the family stayed away, my mother slept more and missed more games, became more suspicious and more dependent on her family for support. Dorothy stayed away, too.

I once asked my mother, Is Everybody a Racist? The suspicion comes from disappointed expectations. I was disappointed, but I couldnt put my finger on why or in whom. This was a dangerous condition. In my mothers youth, it was as much a symptom of mental illness as a justification for incarcerating us disappointees in lunitic asylums.

My mother answered my question by telling me a story of her own institutionalization. But what did that have to do with racism?

She said her hospital years were the best days of her life. She fell in love, blossomed into a woman, made friends of all colors, found refuge in a way, and strength in herself to have a family. Why she was committed had something to do with why she didnt attend many baseball games. She let it lay at that.

The images of Victors mother running out the back door, like she was a common thief, stayed with me...and remains with me to this day. I resigned myself to believing my mother was just sick like my family had always told me. It was as easy for me to ignore my mothers pain as it was for her to spare me the suffering she endured.

I wanted Victor to ride in the ambulance with me but they wouldnt take him. My Mom wasnt breathing or moving when Victor and I woke up that morning. Perhaps black people didnt ride in ambulances, at least in the front. I didnt know. My family didnt let him ride in their car either. All I knew was I was alone.

My mother used to say that Id be better off with those aunts and uncles. She got her wish. I moved in and soon, Victor and I were separated.

Years later, I had a chance to talk with Victors mother. She told me that she hadnt seen Victor in a long time. She lamented missing his games, and said she missed my Mom. I asked Dorothy why she fled my house the way she had on that sunny summer day so long ago. Always a woman of few words, she said she spent most of our games visiting with my mother because they both needed a friend. She said they couldnt be with each other at the games. I started to ask, Why not? but remembered Dorothys reaction to seeing my family pull in when she was in our home, and the lectures my mom endured.

I wonder if my mother might have had a friend that she stopped to talk to on her way home back in those days before she went crazy at 17.

Brandyberry (1999) implored her white friends to reach out, despite the consequences. Perhaps my mother did so long before it was fashionable. Perhaps she stopped to comfort someone from another race, talk, or share some happy times in her youth, like Victors Mom had with her...and me. Maybe that person happened to be black. Maybe thats why she was committed. I suppose its hard to say, but I can always hope thats the way it happened and be thankful I had a Mom like her and a buddy like Victor. You never bothered me, I told Dorothy, and she hugged me as if I were her own son.

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Brammer, R. (2004). Diversity in counseling. Belmont: CA: Brooks/Cole.

Brandyberry, L.J. (1999). Pain and perseverance: Perspectives from an ally. Journal of Counseling and Development, 77, 7-9.

Buckley, W.F. (1994, December). Is everybody a racist? National Review, 46, ___.

Malanowski, J. (2002). Colorblind buddies in black and white. [Electronic Version]. NY Times, Nov.10.

Tatum, B.D. (1999). Its not so black and white: An educators wisdom on teaching about slavery and other race-related issues. Instructor, 108, 29-31.