WHITE MAN 1
Get on wid it. An’ make it good, nigger. Make it good.
CHOLLY’s lover turns cold. He continues the act but it is no longer love. The WHITE MEN stand there, chuckling for a minute or so and then they walk away. Their voices grow more distant until all that can be heard are the sounds of the country night.
NARRATOR (VOICE OVER)
This incident leaves Cholly scarred for life. It is a watershed moment of shame upon which others will build. Eventually, self-hate will implode the young black man. He will embrace alcoholism and begin to despise his wife and his children. Ultimately, he will rape his young daughter. It would take the space of another novel to fully understand how the incident had scarred DARLENE.
CUT TO:
A close up on CHOLLY’s face. His face, a scowl. CHOLLY raises himself up from DARLENE. She is silent, frozen with pain. His hands loom menacingly as though he might strangle her.
CUT TO:
BLACK
The sounds of CHILDREN PLAYING can be heard.
DISSOLVE TO:
EXT. FIELD—DAY
Color film. A group of fourth grade boys are playing a game of football on a black top. These are St. Albans boys, students at one of Washington, D.C.’s most prestigious private schools. They wear blazers, ties, turtlenecks, and slacks. They play their game in the shadow of the National Cathedral. A tall kid steps up to the line of scrimmage with the football in his hands. His team of five receivers joins him.
That’s ME, age 10, scrawny and lanky, at the right end of the line, getting excited to run a pass route. The QB hikes the ball and the PASS RUSHER stands in front of him, READY TO STRIKE.
PASS RUSHER
One-Mississippi. Two-Mississippi.
BURNING my defender down the field I wave my hand to let the QB know I am open. Our eyes connect and he sends the ball into the air. As it comes closer to my hands something blurs. My coordination escapes me and the ball DROPS to the ground.
A TEAMMATE walks by me, angry at the missed opportunity. He HITS me on the shoulder and looks me in the eye.
TEAMMATE
Faggot.
ME
Fuck you.
Recollect these:
1.A year-long beating in fourth grade
a.Faggot, a nickname
b.Mouth, a weapon
c.Nigger, an insinuation
2.A failure to fit a part
a.Catch footballs
b.Play Nintendo
c.Shhh yer little mouth, teacher don’t wanna hear about yer fag-tag
3.A face crushed into pillows, upstairs
a.At home the
b.Parents hope that
c.Moments will pass
4.A list of boys’ school rules
a.Class shuffled out like cards
b.You don’t pick your hand, you just play it the best you can
c.Get stuck or be ready to stick
5.A fifth and sixth grader
a.Stand up straight
b.Look through them sharply
c.Laugh down at them and look up now: son, you’re popular
The well-dressed, would-be men of St. Albans pass through the halls on their way to class, toting L.L.Bean and JanSport backpacks filled to the brim with selections from the literary canon. I walk down the hallway, book bag weighing me down. I wear awkward glasses and an oxford, one neck-size too big. My red tie is done up in a rough, bulky knot and my khakis hang slightly below my waist. A blazer without buttons. I am a freshman now and any prestige I amassed in grade school has been erased. The slate is fresh and naked.
In James Weldon Johnson’s 1912 The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man, the central character, a bi-racial man who is light enough to pass for white, finds that he still can’t escape nigger moments even when he isn’t the primary victim. As he moves through the early 20th century South considering whether or not to live as black or white, he witnesses the lynching and burning of a black man. This traumatic moment drives the character to embrace a white existence for the rest of his life, forever leaving behind the black elements of his heritage. He fails to realize that he will always be sensitive to black issues: He will always be the invisible victim of nigger moments. Someone in the room shouts “nigger” and laughs. He smiles along, cringes beneath the false pretense of his light skin. Even in passing he cannot transcend the pain.
There is a new weapon in high school: Anything a black kid does that breaks from the stereotype of what it “means” to be black is dubbed as “manipulated.” How do you know if you’re manipulated? Do you listen to Guns N’ Roses or like the Boss? Do you wear tight, torn Levi’s jeans instead of baggy Hilfigers? Do you get good grades and get them with pride? Do you talk with an accent fitting for white, college-bound gentlemen? Have you ever dreamed of kissing a white girl? If you answered yes to any of these questions then you might be manipulated.
As the older, cool kids run the manipulation trials, they substitute questions of blackness into the subtext of The Crucible. Like Africans selling slaves to white men on their shores, the prosecutors are often black, but even some of the popular white students aren’t afraid to move in for the kill either. And like being called a faggot in fourth grade, you don’t go to the dean about being called manipulated. That action would in fact be considered manipulated—even the dean might call you out on that one.
Roosevelt is in tenth grade. He is physically imposing, a star lineman on the varsity football team. He is also black, often pissed off, and he will personally lead the inquisition of my psyche during freshman year of high school. I have known his family for years. I am friends with his younger brother and our parents get along. But the family history brings little pause to Roosevelt’s crusade against what he sees as my white cultural leanings.
I stand outside of the high school’s main entrance, leaning against the frame of the large wooden dais, observing the expanse of the campus, the National Cathedral posing in the background. It is a free-dress day. Most kids have left their preppy uniforms at home. Some boys, anticipating their business-casual wardrobe of the future, wear golf shirts tucked into jeans. Others are simply wearing jeans and t-shirts. I’ve got my jeans on, torn like the denim of Kurt Cobain. Roosevelt walks by me. Looks me up and down, and, seeing my alternative rock outfit, produces a frown and a comment: “Why are you such a sellout?”
Dearest Saint Alban,
The quandary you’ve put me in is most disturbing. The layers of contradiction are disorienting. Who put these “non-black” clothes — the blazers, turtlenecks and ties — on my back in the first place? Didn’t you ask me to be one of tomorrow’s champions? Haven’t you constructed me in your divine image of the beautiful, strong and rich Caucasian man? Then why do you spite me when I play the role so well?
Your friend,
Andre
P.S. thanks for putting A Midsummer Night’s Dream on this semester’s curriculum — what a read!
Walking into a bathroom, I see two white sophomores sitting up on the windowsill, talking about rap music. We are not friends but I choose to intervene and correct them on the finer points of hip-hop. One of them demands of me, “Well what