Waiting for Superman Journa

 

 When I was seven and living in Baton Rouge Louisiana, my mother and I rode two city buses to a school in a different town so that I wouldn’t be a minority. It was a 1.5 hour bus ride each way. I learned how to tie my shoes on that bus. Being Caucasian in an all African American neighborhood wasn’t a problem for my mother considering she’s struggled with being a minority herself. My mother came out as a lesbian when she was 22. Sexuality is something difficult enough to be confused about, let alone to have the responsibility of being a single parent to two toddlers while in your twenties. But, when she  picked us up and whisked us away to  our new home that smelled of beignet’s and 90’s sweat, we stood face to face with a culture shock that was all our own. Maybe it was because I was the new kid on the block or it could’ve been my coke bottle glasses, but it probably was because we stuck out like sore thumbs in a low income housing shell of a box. The kids in the neighborhood threw rocks at our windows, graffiti our front door and stole our bicycles. When my mother went to the boys house to explain to his parent’s what he had done, his mom started beating him with a long stick in front of her, leaving the boy with large bruises on his body. My mom started crying, screaming at her to stop. After that she was afraid to speak up. That’s how it was in Baton Rouge in 1996. Surely, it wasn’t the 1800’s and none of us were picking cotton, but we weren’t purchasing Lisa Frank with our allowance’s either. When I went to my first day of school with the kids that stole my bike, I was completely oblivious. I didn’t know what skin color was. At six I couldn’t tell the difference between my friend and myself. But my teacher could.  I don’t remember this, but I was harassed by the teachers for being white. I was the only white child out of four hundred students. Not being able to afford to move to a neighborhood that had a school that was more eclectically mixed, we were forced to ride a bus 3 hours a day. Because of this, my mom worked less. And then we had to move back to Florida, to live with my grandma. I don’t know if schools make bad neighborhoods, or if good neighborhoods make good schools. But I’d think that bad schools are to blame. The kids who were mean to us weren’t bad kids, the grownups were bad people. They were being conditioned to behave a certain way. Like a mockingbird, they act as they saw and they did what they knew.