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| Poison Ivy--picture taken in Traverse City, Michigan by author |
I grew up in Boulder. When I was in elementary school there were no African Americans in my classes--not a one. When I was in junior high (back then there were no middle schools in Colorado) I remember a couple of African Americans. Then in high school, there were a few more--maybe four people in the whole school. I remember thinking to myself, "I can't see any racism--it must not exist any more." Looking back, I can easily see the racism, but back then I couldn't.
In high school the afternoon bus would come to pick us up really late. School got out around 2:30 in the afternoon and the bus wouldn't pick us up until 4. To pass the time we would go to the rec center and play basketball. It was there that I met some African American boys. One of the boys, James, liked a friend of mine--Amy.
James had no interest in me whatsoever. But he really liked Amy--and so I got to know James a little. It just so happened that I worked at McDonald's and they had one of those loyalty things going on where the customer got a scratch ticket with every purchase. James really liked those scratch tickets and he really liked me to give him a few extra tickets each time he came in.
As time went on, the number of tickets that James wanted increased until I was handing him a stack of tickets every time he came in. This made me feel very uncomfortable and so I searched for a way to tell him I didn't want to give him tickets any more.
I remember I handed James the tickets and then said, "Now listen boy..."
James' face changed. He became extremely angry and he threw the tickets back at me. James said, "Don't you ever call me boy!" and he stormed out of McDonald's never to return while I was working.
I was baffled. What had happened?
I told someone who worked there what had happened and he said, "Boy is a term that whites used to use with slaves." I was stunned, embarrassed, and very remorseful all at once. I didn't understand how it was possible that I could have used a term like that without realizing what I saying.
I began to look for examples of people using the word "boy." I was astonished at how many instances I could find. On television I saw white men calling black men "boys" more times than I could count. I read books where white men were calling black men "boys." It was everywhere. Slowly, I began to realize that I had known exactly how to use to word "boy" when I was speaking with James. Even though I hadn't consciously picked up on what it meant, some part of knew exactly what I was saying. Racism was in me whether I wanted it to be or not.
