Every year the Ku Klux Klan marches through my neighborhood. Last year the news crew followed them past our house. Tommy and Mark were on the news waving hello. I can hear them bragging about it from across the street. Those are my sister’s friends over there sitting on the brick bungalow porch. She is five years older than me so they don’t usually associate with us younger kids. Today is unlike any other day. All the kids in the neighborhood have the same thing on their mind; White Power. Everyone seems closer to one another today; more familiar. My sister’s friends call us “Stoners” because we listen to Metallica and heavy metal music. They think we’re weird and immature. We think they listen to boring music and spend too much time feathering their hair. Today, we don’t notice our differences as much as we recognize our similarities.
There are at least 50 teenagers on my block. Most of them live further away but they came to visit some friends. I live down the street from Marquette Park. The Southwest side of Chicago is segregated into four areas. West Lawn is where the upper class White kids live. Evergreen Park is an inter-racial neighborhood. That is where most of the city workers and Irish people live. Chicago teachers, cops, and firemen are required to reside within the city so they go to Evergreen Park because it is the closest thing to suburban living. There are nicer houses and better schools in the Southwest suburbs of Chicago than there are in the Southwest side of the city. Marquette Park is a blue-collar, White neighborhood. A few blocks down is Western Avenue. That is where the niggers live. They are moving closer toward Marquette Park.
The politicians want to force integration. They are giving incentives to Blacks who purchase homes in this area. The property value is going down as a repercussion. Real estate value has been declining every year since the de-segregation program begun. The schools are more overcrowded too. Homeowners worry about losing out financially and seeing their neighborhoods disintegrate. There is an old joke around here that goes, “How do you get rid of dandelions in your front lawn?” The answer is that you plant a black dandelion and watch the others move away.
When I was in second grade they bused in the first Black student as part of an inter-district program to end segregation. He was so bullied that he finally transferred. He was a fourth-grader. One day I saw some kids picking on him and I felt sorry for him so I tried to help him out. Mrs. Whitman, my former first grade teacher, witnessed the whole incident. Mrs. Whitman is Black too. She beamed at me proudly and told me that I was a good girl. I didn’t consider her to be like the other niggers that I had heard so much about. She was always praising me. My own mother didn’t see all the good in me that Mrs. Whitman had seen and for that reason I called her “Mom”. My best friend at the time, Pilar Moreno, called her “Mom” too. I wrote letters to Mrs. Whitman up until I was in 6th grade. My parents transferred me to a Lutheran school in 7th grade because I was so bad.
Now that I think about it, all of my teachers at Marquette were Black. Mrs. Leroy, my second grade teacher was Black. She was evil if there is such a thing as that. She made us duck-walk around the room when we didn’t do our homework. If we didn’t recite our times tables fast enough, she made us hold up dictionaries until our arms gave out from exhaustion. I hated school back then but luckily I got Mrs. Whitman again in third grade and enjoyed school for a little while longer. She would have promoted me past second grade if I had done my homework in first grade. Instead, she gave the promotion to Jennifer Phillips who was much more studious and well behaved. Plus, she wore thick bifocals that made her look real smart. Now I regret not getting promoted because if I had been, I’d be a sophomore in high school.
After third grade I got Mrs. Grider. She was Black too. There was a Black boy in the class as well but he left because he got picked on too much. In fifth grade I had Mrs. Mosley. She was Black. She was pretty nice too. In sixth grade I had Mr. Douglass. He was an old Black man with a salt and pepper afro. He always kept a pack of “Kool” cigarettes in his front shirt pocket. One day he caught me reading a “Truly Tasteless Jokes” paperback. He took it from me, pointed to the racial jokes, and asked me what my parents would think if they knew I was reading it. I told him that my dad bought it for me when he took me to the used book store. I went on to tell him where the bookstore was located to prove to him that I wasn’t lying. I told him how awesome the bookstore was too in hopes that we could change the subject. All books were priced between ten cents and a quarter. I think I got that book for a dime. He tossed the book back on my desk and shook his head. Back then I used to draw pictures of demons on my desk. He probably thought I was a troubled kid so left me alone. He didn’t make me erase it because he said that the artwork was really good and I actually think that he meant it. There are more than a dozen Black students attending Marquette Elementary right now, plus there are many Hispanic kids being bused in from other districts. There is much hostility over this de-segregation program and that is another reason why my parents wanted me to transfer to a private school. The public school system was considered to be of low-grade quality and rapidly declining.
I graduated from Nativity of our Blessed Virgin Mary Elementary School this year. I hated that school. I didn’t make any friends there. Father Andrew was a child molester and I got into arguments with Sister Helen on a weekly basis. They gave me a real hard time for reasons I didn't understand at the time. I guess I was just different so they looked on me with suspicion. After the summer I will be attending Maria High School. Sister Helen told my dad that she was so surprised I passed the entrance exam. My dad told me that he didn’t realize that it was such a hard exam. He seemed proud of this fact. I never told him that I tried to fail the exam so I could go to a public high school.
As I sit here reminiscing about all the Black people I’ve ever known throughout my life, and as I ponder about how much I loathe school, my friends and I are sitting on the front porch waiting for the KKK rally to begin. Someone yells, “A paddy wagon! C’mon let’s go, they’re here.” Everyone runs toward California Street where people are now swarming in mass hordes. People are shouting or chanting, beer bottles are clinging, and mullets are waving in the wind as the KKK pass by in their white sheets and cone-shaped hats. I get goose pimples from all the excitement in the air. The chanting is ominous: “What do we want? White Power! When do we want it? Now!” I feel like I am part of a special elite race of warriors. I think we all feel this new sense of pride and camaraderie because I notice how my friends who typically slouch and mope around in a stoned stupor are now walking more upright and with greater force.
There are some Black people marching this year. This is causing a great stir. Policemen escort them as they somberly walk around the horseshoe-bend road near the monument that I like to climb. The urge to climb that 30 foot tall triangular monument stirs my senses. I ask Chris if he wants to climb it with me to get a better look at everything. He tells me that the cops will arrest me if I do that. I’m standing shoulder to shoulder with drunks and perverted guys who feel me up every now and then and my discomfort level is increasing by the moment. The psychiatrist told my parents that I have a sensory disorder that causes me to not want to be touched and I wonder if that is causing this minor panic attack that I’m feeling. All the noise distorts my perception. I can’t think. The KKK guy is shouting over the bull horn, “Wake up White people!” One of the Black protesters catches my eye. She looks scared and I feel sorry for her. I think I can actually feel her twitching so I look away. The chanting becomes rhythmic as it grows louder. A bald guy is standing in front of me chanting and throwing his fist up in the air. He turns around to report to us some historical fact about Martin Luther King. However, his drunken stammers make no sense. Nobody responds to him so he shouts louder, “Marden Loofer King got hit in da head right dere! Right dere!.” He blurts the same thing a few more times until he gets the attention of the protesters. I imagine the Black lady getting hit with a rock as she looks at him. She is holding up a sign that has a Martin Luther King quote written on it: “An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.” The glimpse of fear I saw in her a moment ago is now gone. She is walking confidently…quietly…soberly. Her proper clothes remind me of those which my teachers wore to school. She looks out of place here and I realize that at any moment the scene can become violent.
I reach inside my backpack to see if I have any money. I find a few quarters and a joint inside and ask Chris if he wants to get high. He can’t hear me with all the noise and commotion. He seems to be having too much fun, so I decide to go to the arcade store by myself to play my favorite game, “High Speed”. It’s a pinball game that was based on a real life, high-speed police pursuit in California. I like to get high and watch the colors of the pinball game bounce off the reflectors and glass. Ducking the other way, I maneuver through the crowd and light up a joint along the way. All these people make me feel invisible so I don’t think much of smoking pot out here in the open. Passing through the crowd, I notice Eddie’s girlfriend from California is getting hit on by an old drunk man. She looks horrified. She is too beautiful to be here and I feel sorry for her and embarrassed for him. I think she feels out of place but goes along with everything because she doesn’t know what else to do. She has that same proper air about her that the Black lady exuded. California seems like a place I’d like to visit. I’m going to head out West someday. As I fantasize about a brighter future, I slip a quarter in the machine, and zone out to the flashing lights and sounds of sirens. I feel pleasantly at peace now. I no longer feel as if I am a part of anything. I am observing everything by myself. I am detached. I feel once more like an individual. In this state I can better recognize the individuality in others.
Being in crowds or groups alters my senses to the point where I lose touch with who I am. I sometimes lose sight of where I begin and where another ends. Too much stimulation fries my nervous system. I realize that it’s not normal for me to be in here by myself when everyone is outside. The reason why I’d rather be alone in here than outside with them is not because I feel so different, it’s because I recognize too many of our similarities.
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