Color

He said, "A black man would never do that... that's a white man thing."

I cocked my head, unsure as to whether a grin was soon to appear on his face, indicating that this was a joke. The grin never came.

"Excuse me?" I said in my least aggressive tone, a grin now on my face.

"No offense, Coach... I just know I would never do something that low-down, and neither would any other black man. That's a white man thing."

"How can you say that? That's racist."

"I'm not trying to be racist now... it's just the truth."

"You're making a blanket statement about two whole races. You can't do that!"

We went back and forth for a while as we stood at our usual positions in the cafeteria. I am the lone female and the lone caucasian in our little group which consists of the Athletic Director, one of my own MTC classmates, and the school janitor.

I looked to the other two for some support, but of course I got none. I was outnumbered and battling a man who was our boss. But I trudged on.

"You're not personally offending me. It just frustrates me to know that if I had said that statement in reverse, you would have been downright livid."

"No I wouldn't," he said. "I thought we were closer than that."

"Well then you're a rare bird down here," I laughed.

At that our conversation went in a different direction. We began talking, ironically, in more generalities. We talked about Southerners versus Northerners. Blacks versus whites. And how race relations and tensions are so much different "down here." By the time my class was ready to leave the lunchroom, we had reached less hostile ground and parted ways smiling as usual. I was still perturbed.

~

When my class got to the part of our journey where we walk through the gym, I heard one of my students poke fun at a kindergartener who was participating in PE.

"Haha that white girl just fell!"

I stopped dead in my tracks, jerked my head in her direction, and paused waiting for the right words. She immediately cowered.

"What does her race have to do with it?" My voice was stern.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean for it to come out like that."

"Answer my question."

"Nothing," she said as she looked at her feet.

~

I sat through two basketball games and nearly all four quarters of the third before I said a single word to the referees - an impressive feat considering how poorly they'd been doing their job. We were in a hostile gym at our rival Holly Springs. With 12 seconds left, one of our boys made a 3-pointer to put us within two points. The head coach immediately called and received a timeout, but I watched the clock wind down five more seconds before it actually stopped. As I looked to the referee to see if he noticed, I caught him signaling to the clock operator that the previous shot had actually been a two. Our fans went wild in protest.

At this point I couldn't help myself. As our team was huddled around, strategizing on how to get a steal and a quick two... ok, now a three due to the poor call, I walked over to the ref.

"Sir, there should be an extra 5 seconds left on the clock."

"Sit down!" he yelled.

"Wow... no need to be disrespectful. I'm just trying to have a conversation. They didn't stop the clock when you blew your whistle."

"You ain't even a coach! Sit your ass down!"

"I'm the assistant coach. Don't talk to me like that," I was unable to control the anger in my voice.

As I turned to walk back towards the bench, I heard his whistle and a roar from the crowd. I swiveled on my heel in time to see him form an animated "T" with his hands. I was astonished. I looked at him, jaw dropped. He simply smiled at me, then turned and cited "unsportsmanlike conduct" to the bookkeeper. 

Needless to say, that was the nail in our coffin. We had no chance to score 4 points in 5 seconds. I felt terrible.

After the game, one of our head coach's friends walked up to me and asked what happened. As I told him, he just kept shaking his head. 

"These refs really don't like you, B"

"Ha... I've noticed. It's just sad because that hurt no one but the kids..."

"You know what their problem is, don't you?

I was afraid to hear it... this couldn't possibly come up three times in one day.

"You're white. Not only that... you're young, not from around here, and white. You ain't never gonna win that battle."

~

Driving home from the game, my hands shook in anger, embarrassment, and indignant disbelief. I've noticed the racial tension down here before. I noticed as early as the fall semester of my freshman year when a fellow athlete refused to stop calling me "white girl." In the years since then, I've grown to accept my position as an outsider who "just doesn't understand" the way things work down here. I've done my best to break down the ugly walls that cripple my students' interactions and friendships, but today I began to wonder if I was a fool for thinking I could. I wondered if I was a fool for thinking people had stopped viewing me a privileged white Northerner - a name given to me by a fellow teacher. I mentally slapped myself across the face. It was half-scold, half-wake up call. Nothing has changed. I was foolish to think it had. And sadly, it makes me question some of my student relationships. When they've grown up in this environment, can I really get mad at the occasional racist comment? Do I have any right?