3.26.16
I attended summer school only once in my life. After completing the rest of my 7th grade at Patrick T. Campbell, I went to summer school to catch up on my Spanish and perhaps another subject—not sure now. But my summer school classes were at another school located in a white neighborhood.
I remembered I had a buddy named, Earnest who was black. We would walk each day from Roxbury to this white neighborhood. One day while preoccupied in our conversation, Earnest and I walked down the sidewalk and just happened to split up two or three white boys on their walk on the sidewalk. When we passed each other, they stared back.
The next day we expected something might happen. We were outside of our ‘hood and in theirs. As we walked to summer school, we saw the white boys ahead of us. And as we walked closer, they attacked us and punched us up. I remember Earnest landed on the ground but neither of us was seriously injured. We never talked about the incident but only took a longer roundabout route to school for the rest of the summer.
I remember how many of my black classmates would tell me how afraid they were to visit Chinatown. I think they have been beaten up there before.
Today while the world has become more multicultural and it’s illegal to red-line neighborhoods by real estate agents anymore, we still live in our respective ghettoes. In touristy Sausalito, there’re always different kinds of people around. I feel I belong superficially but economically; we live in different worlds from those who are the very privileged. There are multiple layers of belonging allow us to fit in. But whenever the much disdain question comes up—“Where are you originally from?” we are reminded that wherever neighborhood you come from, there are still a lot of work to be done for full acceptance and inclusion.
Jesus was able to cross over different kinds of ‘hoods—Samaritans, tax collectors, Greek, lepers, and others to teach God’s will for love of neighbor and understanding. I’m glad to remember that when the white boys attacked us, neither Earnest or I threw punches back.