An excerpt from the Washington Post Magazine -
A story about some words I can’t say
By Damon Young
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| (Monique Wray for The Washington Post) |
The first thing I learned about my new White classmates at St. Bartholomew Catholic School was less a “new thing learned” and more a rejection of an old thing thought.
Months earlier (this was in the early ’90s), my parents decided to pull me out of Pittsburgh public schools and enroll me there to start sixth grade. If you’d asked Dad why they made that decision, he’d probably talk about “pre-AP courses” or “the benefits of didactic parochial instruction” — exactly what Black parents who ship their kids to predominantly White suburban schools are supposed to say. But if you knew my dad, and you asked that same question, he might tell you the truth: I was a talented basketball player, and their ball program was the best in western Pennsylvania. Getting me there was one step toward his (later successful) master plan of getting me a full ride to college.
Anyway, I assumed the White boys there would be soft. And it’s not like I was hard. But I was hood. And I thought that meant I was inherently tougher than anyone not from a place like where I was from. Especially suburban Catholic White boys. But my new classmates and teammates were the sons of plumbers and deli owners, school nurses and construction workers. They ripped and roasted and fought just as quickly — and just as well — as anyone from my neighborhood did. Months later, when we outfought the rest of the diocese to cap an undefeated hoop season, I never felt so good to be so wrong.
The second thing I learned about my new White classmates happened my third day there. It was recess, which meant each of the 50 sixth-graders finished whichever combination of carbs and veggies were served at lunch that day and then rushed to the rectory-adjacent parking lot for our 16 minutes of freedom before the fifth period bell rang. Most of the boys took part in a football-like substance where the football was a Koosh ball and we played “stop-grab” instead of two-hand touch.
You can't stop here. Click the link to get to the point he's making. - Faye
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