Unattached Musings

This is, *ahem*, a serious post. Somewhat unusual for me, I suppose, but I've been feeling rather moody all day (whether this is due to the comment we're about to discuss or to the fact that I'm back at school after a phenomenally luxurious break is currently undetermined) so this post gets to bear the brunt of it.

What set it off was a conversation with a certain Nyx regarding a certain Warburton (I'm currently trying to ignore the fact that it's entirely possible that Warburton will read this and recognize the description of himself...I'm still adjusting to the fact that people legitimately read this thing). Warburton is one of the many individuals who have emailed me in search of RSI assistance (my last count is 26 total); his email was one of the more memorable, though, as it was about four pages of sleep-deprived babbling, followed by an offer to play scrabble. I spent a couple of days pointing and laughing at the email, the read it closely enough to work out what he was asking and try to respond to that. After we had worked out that he was not, as I originally suspected, completely batshit crazy, I gave him Nyx's email because she wanted a scrabble buddy. She reportedly stayed up way too late talking and playing scrabble with him, and they reportedly had a bit of a nerd cred contest.

Nyx defines nerd cred as indie cred for nerds. Indie cred does have a wikipedia entry, so I suppose this is legit. I define nerd cred as "that thing I am always trying to get more of. Bryant probably defines nerd cred as "that thing I have so much of that I don't bother trying anymore." Bryant has an amount of nerd cred comparable to the level of indie cred held by a band that only its members have heard of. Warburton's nerd cred, from what I can tell, is more along the lines of the band that doesn't exist yet--so, basically, dude is a completely, ridiculously smart. I'm exaggerating a bit, but for the sake of the analogy, it is at least somewhat funny.

As I was saying, Nyx and I had a conversation on the way to school (it should be noted just how terrible I am at sticking to a serious topic). She said Warburton has more nerd cred than me. I agreed, saying that he should get into RSI as a result, but one never knows. She agreed with me, and I said that I wonder sometimes how I got into RSI when there are all of these awesome people out there. She gave me the look that said that I was missing some important point.

"You're a girl," she said, as if that was all the reason that was needed.

I can't find it on the website (so maybe it's not true) but I recall being informed, multiple times, that for those selecting an RSI class, affirmative action is not used. This is how we end up with 1.5 minority students and only 1/3 girls (I just checked flipped through my summerbook at counted the American students--30%. I cannot imagine it would be that low if affirmative action was used). The website does say that students are selected "solely on the basis of their accomplishments and intellectual potential," but this was in reference to costs rather than gender/race/what have you, and I'm not the sort of person who will seriously quote out of context.

Regardless, it hurts. It hurt when Dino said the only reason I was selected for SHP at the end of freshman year, when he was not, is that I was a girl. Because obviously my test scores are lower, or the same--I couldn't possibly have a greater level of scientific knowledge beyond the biology that I will freely admit he is better at. It hurts that when I am sitting at the top of my AP physics class (well, I'm not certain my grade is actually the highest, but that's because I'm being lazy and not working as hard as I should), class that has 25 boys and 2 girls (though I grant you the vast majority of these guys are jocks who probably should not be in the class), and people continue to think that I got into college because I'm a girl, that I had this opportunity and that opportunity because I'm female and not because I am a very intelligent person who has spent years working my ass off.

But I'm a secure individual. I know that shouldn't bother me, because satisfaction rests within the self. I believe that I am both capable and deserving, so it shouldn't matter what others think. The only reason that it should bother me is the same reason that the previous sentence says "believe" instead of "know." I am not as certain as I think I am. Nyx's words troubled me because she is among my closest friends, and is one of those I've known the longest and know the best. It makes me wonder: if my best friend doesn't believe in me, who will? And if she doesn't it, is my belief in myself unwarranted?

This is the insecurity that gnaws at me. It continues to live partly because most of the things that people regularly dispute can be attributed to affirmative action, so I can't quite tell myself that they aren't true--but I can't totally blame an outside source. Much of it is a case of "imposter syndrome", the feeling that, no matter what I've achieved, I've cheated somehow, and one of these days, someone is going to notice that I don't deserve my current position. It's common, from what I can tell, among women in the sciences, and I'll discuss it later, but I went on a huge tangent below, and I think that a discussion of that idea deserves its own post.

The insecure feeling is similar to that which troubled me when Kathrya assumed I wouldn't land something because I'd be competing against international students, and they'd all be better--though in that case, it bothered me less, because I'm well aware that the best of the rest of the world is substantially better than me. I'm well aware that a lot of students in this country are better than me--but in what I've dedicated myself to, the number is damn small. There are probably tens of thousands with my grades, but if you throw in research and everything else--there are a number that do better, but from what I can tell, there are a few hundred of us that are about on par with each other (maybe closer to 1000 or so, I'm not entirely sure), maybe a bit more or less--though I'm getting stuck on this one, because while it's easy to make sweeping judgements, I don't know what everyone else is capable of, and I still don't know precisely where I stand.

However, any of these people would be qualified, overall, for RSI. These are the people that will do research at Caltech, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, Stanford (though a smaller number of them will end up at other schools). I don't really know what separates those who got into RSI from those who didn't--RSI is literally too small of a program to accept all of the qualified applicants, particularly if we take to heart MIT's constant statement that it, too, cannot accept all who are qualified--but regardless, there are more people sitting at the level of "totally awesome" than there are people at RSI. And at this point, I no longer remember what the purpose of this discussion was--something along the lines of being the best here, but not the best everywhere, which doesn't totally make sense. My 1000 estimate of people who are really into research--well, that's not a very conservative estimate. I would probably be better off with a few times that. And if "the best" includes that many people, what really qualifies me to say that I or anyone else is the best? If we make our definition broad, we pick up people who are good at many things. If we make it narrow, we discount the most intelligent.

I think I just made a point, but it has no relation to anything else I've talked about. I wanted to say something about affirmative action, I think. About how horrifically bitter Gretchen is because, from what she can tell, being an asian female puts her at a disadvantage in the college process. About how worried I feel that I've been receiving things I haven't deserved, even as I am fuming over the fact that others don't believe I deserve them. So where does it help?

It helps the statistics. It makes schools have the right numbers. And as I said before, with the huge numbers of the best, you could quite possible fill an MIT class with asian females and have the whole class be amazing. You could probably do the same with white Europeans. I don't know enough about the numbers to say if one could do the same with blacks, or with hispanics--I have a feeling that there aren't enough total people in research positions already. You could probably fill a class with people capable of succeeding, but it's quite likely that they wouldn't have had the same training. Just like I wouldn't have had the same training if I hadn't been accepted to the programs I was accepted to--because that's what enabled me to be one of these best people.

I feel like my reasoning is going in circles. The problem is that any equality in receiving an opportunity can go two ways--you can try to equalize people based on what they've had access to, and accept based off of that. Or you can actually take the people who have done the most, sum total, to be the most qualified. It's confusing, and I don't totally get it, and I'm tired, and I have a feeling that I'm going to offend people, and I'm a bit annoyed about the fact that I'm no longer anonymous, so I'm probably going to offend real people.

*insert curse word here*

It really is remarkable

Just how much work work manages to be. I remember next to nothing from these days, just a cloud of sleeping off sickness, infecting others (Dawson, I'm sorry), and reading paper after paper after endless paper.

Oh, and writing. That second milestone was a fair bit of work, I suppose, although I think a better chunk of the 13th was spent pretending to read S. Mckee's thesis on nuclear energy, which I never did get all the way through (although I did manage to forget to cite her half-life data. Whoops).

I'm going to say that this was the day that I walked to dinner with Jared and Bashir, because it will make for a more interesting post.

Bashir is the crazy Lebanese guy who works in my lab. He is, as I've said, crazy, but you will probably get more on that later.

Jared is Bashir's roommate. Jared is a big Asian guy from a big city (and I say big in a relatively loose sense of the word, because, while tall and muscle-y, he is still extremely skinny) who wears baggy t-shirts and long shorts and waves his arms and gesticulates in a manner suggesting a comfortable existence in a ghetto.

On this particular day, I walked out of the dorm with the pair of them.

"Why," asked Bashir, "are there no black people in RSI?"

Jared and I looked at him.

"There are not! I look, and I see black people, and they are all MITES. There are none here. Why are there no black people."

Jared looked pained.

"Why!" demanded Bashir.

"Well, there was supposed to be one, but his visa fell though, and he was, like, actually from Africa," I said.

"No, look, see," said Jared. "You can't just ask this shit."

"I just did. You say I cannot ask this, but then look! I do!"

"I think what Jared means is that it's not the sort of thing that one generally talks about. It's a sensitive subject."

"Yes! That's it. We don't talk about it. You just pretend that it doesn't exist."

"Why would I pretend that it doesn't exist when it so clearly does?"

"Because that's what you do," responded Jared. "You pretend, and then it just, I dunno, goes away."

"I'm not exactly certain that it--" I started.

"It will not go away. Look at your movies."

"What?" said both Jared and I.

"All the black people in the movies--they are stupid. Stupid. So stupid. They cannot talk, they cannot live, they cannot make money. They are poor and stupid. What am I supposed to think about black people here when all I see is 'blacks are dumb'?"

"SHUT UP! Bashir, don't let anybody hear you!" Jared looked worried.

"Well, what do black people do?" asked Bashir.

"I dunno, they play basketball," said Jared.

"I'm not sure that's the sort of thing you would think that you should be saying," I said.

"Shut up."

"Jared, I thought that you played basketball."

"I used to."

"Why'd you stop?" I asked.

"Were the black people better than you? Did they make your asian-boy look stupid?" asked Bashir, before beginning to laugh.

"Bashir, someone is going to hear you, and they are going to beat you up."

"No, they will not. The only one who will beat me up is you, and you won't, because you love me."

"I do not love you."

"You are my roommate. Of course you love me."

"You are so fucking crazy."

Bashir just laughed.

Well, Ginny covered ride there

here, so I figured I'd take care of the next bit.

Despite the tardiness of three of the eight paperclips, we still arrived at the high school early, and, due to the absurdly tight arrival schedule, waited for about five minutes outside of the parking lot before getting dropped off.

As we drove over, a pair of decidedly math-geek looking boys were playing frisbee on the tennis courts. Mario and Irving derided their skill. While I can accept that Mario is probably decent as frisbee, since he does seem to be relatively athletic, as far as math team people go, I highly doubt that Irving could have done much better.

Regardless, we walked into the school to a separate area from Mr. Booth, so we had to take a few minutes to make extra certain that everybody was equipped with a TI-84 for the team round (which was completely useless, as I don't think I even touched mine) and hear a last minute "down with Treeburg" reminder before we filed off to the cafeteria.

I went to the bathroom soon after arriving, bringing Ginny along with me. This detail is not relevant at this point in the story, but it is foreshadowing. Note the foreshadowing.

Moving along. The four present members of the dream team sat on one side of out little section of bleachers, and we sat on the other. Our group, consisting of Ginny, Micro, Argon and I, discussed the relative visible nerdiness of the various students. For instance, the girl who was clad entirely in purple, including a too-tight-weirdly-cut-oddly-long purple dress, leggings of the same shade and purple sneakers: nerdy. Blonde guy in cargos with a long blonde ponytail: nerdy. Short guy doing handstands without tucking his shirt: very nerdy. Tall, otherwise reasonable looking guy wearing a t-shirt that said "I failed the Turing test": nerdy. Team of guys wearing sunglasses like Nia's normal ones and carrying a boombox: trying too hard to not be nerdy, but failing when they turned on the boombox at a not ear-shattering volume.

There was then a supremely horrific degree of disorganization of us trying to find our rooms, but we did eventually do so. I met a girl from my cousin's hometown who looked extremely not nerdy, but I have a feeling that this is more because she is black, and my image of a nerd is either asian or white or occasionally indian, than anything else. Midway through the first round, when "TWO MINUTES" was called (I realize that that is technically not midway. Forgive me), I jumped and said "oh my god," then mentally congratulated myself for not swearing, although I'm fairly certain that I did manage to get a big fat 0 on that round, unfortunately. Honestly, I would feel so much more secure with myself if I'd just gotten that one three-point negative sign....

Ah, well, c'est la vie. I need to get back to calculus. Ginny, if you want to continue this, please do.

Royal Flush

Last time I played poker, I kicked ass. However, we were playing for checkers, so I didn't win any money. Goddamnit.

Speaking of Royal Flushes, though, I couldn't find any notecards today, and I didn't want to do something immediately productive, so I decided to study spanish, but couldn't, due to the lack of notecards. To circumvent this issue, I found a stack of post-it notes that my father received recently. On each side is written, in large letters A ROYAL FLUSH. On the the upper fourth of each sticky is written:

A ROYAL FLUSH Portable Restrooms 1-877-###-####. www.aroyalflush.com

Said website opens to an extremely classy picture of a portajohn on a beach. Needless to say, phrases such as mortificade fondo (embarrassed bottom) are feeling right at home.

Were you aware that the standard portable toilet weights 235 pounds?

That is 101 pounds more than yours truly! I definitely could not lift that.

Speaking of portapotties, I love Glee. The T.V. show, with the singing glee club members. I almost wish it were September just so I could watch it again.

Also, since I'm working on my portfolio, here is a short paragraph of my musings on race.

I'm underexposed to those of other races. It is difficult to view black people as unique individuals when I only talk to two or three of them, and many others would say that those kids "act white." It reminds of Mean Girls, when they introduce the lunch tables, and there are plenty of cliques for the different social groups of white kids, but the groups of racial minorities must form their own, like the "Asian nerds" "cool asians" "unfriendly black hotties," as opposed to the multitude of white groups. Unlike white people, whom I see as individuals, or, at the very least, specific labels, black people are in their own category, labeled only as "black."

Deep, huh?

AND, as if your day couldn't get any better, I leave you with a piece of fiction I wrote last year, for English class.

Enjoy!

They meandered their way down the old path, arms around each other. She tripped frequently, much preferring the view of him to that of the path. It was just so wonderful. She couldn’t think of a better word. She and Derek, finally alone. She snuck another look at his smiling eyes, and snagged her toe on a rock. He caught her just before a tumble became unavoidable.

“C’mon, Lynn. Let’s sit.”

They settled themselves with his back against the tree, and her back against him. She leaned into his warmth, pulling her knees up to her chest. He reached his arms around her to fiddle with her shoes. He talked idly, and she responded with half her mind. There was always talking. The small town they lived in used to have farms and a small factory, but the products of the factory had long ago gone out of style, and the farm produced less than the amount needed to sustain the town. People were living on their savings, constantly talking about what they had lost. Lynn and Derek, still young, mostly just farmed, and usually together. They were always talking, but this nearness, this closeness, was so wonderfully new. Lynn leaned into him, smiling again.

“If we don’t get going, I won’t have time to show it to you,” he said, pulling himself up from behind her. He walked about ten feet away. “You coming?”

“I’m working on it. Maybe I’d be a bit more motivated if you would tell me what you’re taking me to.”

“Nope. It’s a surprise.” He grinned.

She smiled back, and then stopped when a barrier suddenly appeared between them. The sky began to flicker light to dark so quickly that the wood seemed bathed in twilight. Derek’s arm reached out imperceptibly, and sparks shot across the barrier where he touched. Then he was gone.

“Derek!” Lynn shouted and leapt up. She was halfway to her feet when he appeared again, but before she could even process that he was back, the wood was once again empty. “No!” She tried to run forward but landed with her face on the earth. He had tied her shoelaces together when they sat against the tree. She lifted her head up, searching for him. The grass turned brown, wilted, and then grew again. When it reached its tallest point, Derek returned for another moment. The cycle repeated thrice more while Lynn lay on the ground.

Lynn lifted her head to look at Derek. With each flash there was some difference, some change, it was, it was- he was getting older. He had filled out a bit, and now his hairline was receding, each reappearance with less hair. His clothes, body, and facial hair all changed, but one characteristic stayed the same; his sad eyes gazed solemnly at Lynn during each instant he returned. But he was getting older. He already looked middle aged.

Lynn pulled herself up, but her tied together shoes kept her from reaching the barrier quickly. By the time she got there, Derek would be a withered old man. She hauled her body off the ground again and threw herself forward, towards the barrier. Her hand slipped through, but she didn’t notice.

Then, she felt a quick pressure on her palm. Confused, she looked up, and her eyes caught Derek’s as he held her hand. An instant later, the connection was gone. Another moment, and he returned. She tried to squeeze back, but by the time she could react to his presence, he was gone. She began to time a returning squeeze with the growth of the grass, matching them so that she clasped when he held her. She smiled up at him, pleased at her success and enjoying the small touches and the fleeting glimpses of him. He was growing into a beautiful old man.

A moment later he vanished, and this time, he did not return. He was young, then old, then- “No!” Lynn cried. Her eyes began to fill. She went to wipe her face with the hand behind the shield, but could not break away. She watched the hand through her tears. Its nails grew longer and longer, looping into a spiral. The veins became more prominent; the skin wrinkled. The joints tightened without her control, and she couldn’t open them. Soon she lost all sensation in it. The hand curled into a tight ball, then began to shrink further. It was eaten away, and Lynn pulled her arm back from the shield. Skin had grown over the edge, but she was now without a right hand. She pulled herself back from that horrible wall that had taken both her hand and her Derek.

She gazed down at her stump of a hand, then turned and watched the endless cycle of the trees. She stood there for hours, trying to comprehend the events that had just occurred. Finally, she took a deep, calming breath, and turned to walk back to town. When she was about halfway there, the strobe light sky ceased, and she was once more bathed in sunlight. By the time she reached the town, it was empty.

“Hello”, she called, her voice quaking, “Is anyone here?” The was no response. “Hello?”

The she heard someone call. “Rodney, I found another straggler.”

“Huh?” Another man, most likely Rodney, responded

“Never mind, I’ll bring her in myself,” he yelled back, then rounded a corner and came face to face with Lynn. “Hello!” He said brightly, “I’m just going to bring you in for a few tests, then you’ll be free to go.”

She looked at him blankly. “What happened?”

“It was a bit of a scientific test. Six hundred years ago, a group of scientists isolated your town in a time bubble. Basically, every second for you was a few years outside, or something like that. I was never much good with math.”

“Wha- why- How could you do that? Isn’t it illegal?”

“You weren’t producing anything, and you were taking in more benefits than you paid in taxes, so they figured there wouldn’t be any negative impact on the economy. And, well, the guy who instigated it is long dead, so he can’t exactly go to jail. All we’ve got to do is pay a few fines, which is well worth the new scientific knowledge. There were all sorts of different microbes six hundred years ago. And there’s been some change in genetics overall, and you didn’t have psychiatric drugs, so your mental processes are fascinating, and you are stock full of extinct microbes. Did you know, we’ve already found sixteen variants of Acute viral nasopharyngiti? It positively amazing.”

Lynn fought to comprehend the barrage of information. “You imprisoned my entire town just because we weren’t contributing to the economy?”

“It’s not like you were harmed, and it was only for a few hours, technically, and-“

Lynn cut him off. “Not harmed! My right hand eaten in front of me, my boyfriend is dead, and no one even asked me anything!”

“Well, um.” The man seemed unprepared to deal with anything except happiness. “ You’ll be monetarily compensated, I’m sure, and we can get a prosthetis no problem. And just think of your gift to humanity. The world has changed so much in six hundred years. You’ll be able to bring history to life. It’s amazing, it’s wonderful, it’s-”

“Horrible!” She cried, and sprinted away from him, past the boundaries of the town to the graveyard that lay a behind an old church. She let the adrenaline from her shock carry her through the gate in the old stonewall. The graveyard looked faded, broken down, but also larger than it had before. She ran past many sections, searching for the area that bore Derek’s family name. She found it at last near the back. There it was. It said his name, his birth and death dates, and then a short statement. “A man who lived many long years, but whose heart shall always belong with the love of his childhood.”

Tawana Brawley

Well, I've finished the rough draft of my story, I think. Critiques, please?

Monday, December 14^th, 1987

I took the turn from the empty section of Main Street onto Ramsey, where I live, far faster than I should have. I had left the high school, where I teach English, about a half an hour ago, and I’d spent the intermittent time at the grocery store, where I had bought a big bag of ice to fill up the drawer in the freezer. I didn’t want the ice to melt, so I was speeding, and when I took that turn a tad sharper than usual, I heard a few rolls, followed by a heavy crunch as a can hit the bottom of the car. I prayed that it wasn’t the tomato sauce. I needed it for dinner, and it would be virtually impossible to remove the stain.

About a minute later, I pulled much more cautiously into the driveway. After getting out of the car, I opened the hatch to check out the fallen can. Miraculously, it appeared intact, but as turned it over to check, the entire contents fell out onto the ground, slopping loudly into a sizable rounded puddle on top of my shoes. I swore before turning and hauling the grocery bags out of the car and into the kitchen.

“Darryl,” I called up the stairs to my husband. “I’m home.”

No response.

I stood still for a moment, listening. I could just hear the whirring of a saw in the back shed. Darryl’s trying to run a carpentry business, but since we moved here from Stony Brook two years ago, he’s mostly been doing odd jobs, although one contractor did have him do some cabinets a few months ago. I wasn’t that fond of sawdust, so I figured I’d make dinner before I went to get him.

For the next hour, I cooked, trying to send the tensions of my day into the vegetables I was chopping. I fried the ground meat I had been going to put in the tomato sauce, boiled the water, and poured in the pasta. When everything was done but the veggies, I turned off the stove and walked out back to the shed. It was still loud, but nothing near the insistent sawing that there was before.

I opened the door without knocking. Darryl was lying on the floor, covered in sawdust, sanding the bottom of a chair. He looked up as I entered.

“These for us?” I asked.

“No, it’s a new job.”

“For who?”

“Steven Pagones, Assistant District Attorney. He works nearby, and we’ve met up for lunch a couple of times, so I told him I’d make him some chairs at a discount.”

“A discount? Do you even have a going rate?”

“No, but he doesn’t have to know that.” Darryl grinned, and I laughed. “I did give him a pretty low rate, though. He’s a nice guy.” He slid out from under the chair and stood. “Dinner?”

I nodded, and we walked back to the house. I took the vegetables out of the oven, and Darryl started putting the pasta into bowls. “Where’s the sauce?” he asked.

“It broke in the car.”

“So we just have meat, without the sauce? We have cheese, you know. You could have made sauce.”

“Darryl, I’ve told you before-”

“I know, I know, it was the last meal your mom cooked before she left, but honestly, it’s been years, and it beats meat not-sauce”

“Sorry, I’m cooking, so you’re going to have to deal.”

He sighed exaggeratedly, so that I could tell that at this point, he was only faking his annoyance. He started clearing the table and picked up the newspaper. “Where do you want me to put this?”

“The counter’s fine.” The newspaper reminded me of something, so I reached for it and started flipping through the pages. “Poor Tawana got a write up in the Times today. Look, ‘Bias Case Fuel Anger of Blacks … Tawana Brawley, a popular 15-year-old high school student-‘ that’s the school I teach at ‘-was found Nov. 28 curled in a fetal position inside a plastic bag behind an apartment house in Wappingers Falls.’ Isn’t that just awful?”

Darryl shook his head. “Steven thinks it’s bull.” He took the paper and flipped to the second half of the article. “See, ‘local law-enforcement officials have questioned the truthfulness of the girl's statements.’”

“There’s no way she’s lying. She’s a good kid, from a broken home.”

“Just like you.”

“And I turned out just fine.”

“Aside from the excessive fear of macaroni and cheese.”

“It brings back bad memories, which I’m sure Tawana has plenty of.”

“If she’s telling the truth.”

“She is.”

Darryl only shrugged.

Three months later

I stumbled down the stairs, feeling, as I always did, utterly lost. I was anything but a morning person. Why on earth had I decided to teach high school and wake up every day- although it was dark enough to be night- at this ungodly hour? I’d been up late, grading papers for the end of third quarter, and it felt like I had only been in bed for five minutes.

As I started the coffee, the front door opened and I heard cheerful whistling. As far as I was concerned, Darryl was completely insane. How someone can be cheerful when it’s still dark out is entirely beyond me. His steps clunked along slowly, and every so often they would slow still further as he flipped through the paper. Suddenly, he swore loudly and came rushing into the kitchen, his heavy steps echoing around my tired head.

“I knew it, I knew it! Look at this!”

“Whaahhh?”

He took in my tired face and slow movements for a moment before turning and pouring my coffee. “Drink.”

I swallowed a bit and pushed my eyes open. “What?”

“That Tawana girl, you know how I said she was lying?”

“She’s not. I told you already, she’s a good kid. Nice girl. She’s telling the truth.”

“Hell no! Look at this. Look!” He waved the paper in my face.

“I can’t read that.”

“She says that Steven raped her.”

“Who?”

“Steven? My friend I’m building furniture for? Yeah, him. She says he’s a rapist. Steven! It’s insane!”

“Jeez, Darryl, what makes you so sure that he didn’t.”

“She’s lying. I know Steven wouldn’t do that.” Darryl was getting angry.

“And I know Tawana wouldn’t lie.”

“She’s a lying black bitch.”

I gasped, shocked.

“She’s accusing my friend of being a rapist. Do you seriously expect me to say nice things?”

‘Black bitch, Darryl? I had no idea you were racist.”

“I’m not. I get on fine with your stepmom, don’t I?”

“Liking one black person doesn’t make you not a racist. Why didn’t I see this before? This has nothing to do with Steven. You think she’s lying because she’s black!”

“What? No, it has nothing to do with that.”

“It clearly does. After all, she’s black, why wouldn’t she be lying.”

“Stop it, I’m not racist, I’m trying to stand up for my friend.”

“Don’t lie to me!” I caught sight of the clock and swore. “I have to go to work. We’ll finish this later.”

After that, I spent most of the day seething in anger at my husband and everyone else who didn’t agree with Tawana. Honestly, she was a 15-year-old girl, a good kid. There was no way she was lying. People who didn’t believe her were clearly letting their misguided impressions of black youth influence their opinions. I thought that was horrible, of course, but what was eating at me the most was that my husband was among them. Darryl, my Darryl, my wonderful, lovable husband, held racist opinions

By the time I had gotten home, I was slightly calmer. Yes, Darryl was being a racist bastard, but I was so obviously right about Tawana, that surely if I pointed it out calmly, he would listen. I cooked dinner, just as I always did. About two minutes before I was going to go get him, I looked up. Darryl was standing right inside the door.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hello.”

“So.” He paused a moment, uncertain as to whether to broach our earlier argument.

I saved him the trouble of deciding. “We need to talk about this morning.”

“Yeah,” he sighed, resignedly.

“I’m sure that you don’t mean to be racist, and I know you don’t think you are, and I’m sure that if we just worked on that a bit, you’d see that Tawana is telling the truth.”

He looked at me incredulously. “I’m not racist.”

“You don’t believe Tawana because she’s black. That’s racism.”

“It’s not racism. It’s an independent case, one girl, and I know the guy she’s accusing, he’s not a rapist, he’s said that evidence has been showing up against her, so I know that she’s wrong. I don’t think all black girls are liars.”

“Darryl, not believing her is racist. You’re jumping to conclusions because you think black girls are liars.”

“I’m not. I told you, I know why I feel the way I do, and that is completely not true!”

“It is!”

“No, it’s-” He shook his head. “I’m not hungry. I’m going to bed.”

“You’re not listening to me!”

“I am listening. You’re the one who isn’t listening to me. At least I have a reason for believing Steven. I actually know him. You only believe Tawana because you think that believing a black girl will prove to your stepmom and everyone else that you aren’t racist. It’s reverse racism.”

“Are you insane?”

“Of course I’m not! Listen to yourself, Chelle. We’ve been married for two years, you should know me better than this.” He paused, taking a deep breath. “If you don’t trust me enough to know that I have my head on straight, we have bigger problems.”

“What?”

“I don’t know that I can live with someone who thinks so little of me.” I gaped at him. “Just, think about it, alright? Like I said, I’m going to bed now.” He stood and walked out of the room.

I sat for a few minutes in shock, replaying the conversation in my head. Were my accusations of racism too strong? I knew that I felt like it was, but I’d never seen any symptoms of it in Darryl before. Maybe Tawana was actually lying? I couldn’t wrap my head around the idea. She was a student, just like most of my own, and she looked nice, and her family was as torn apart as my own, and I knew that girls got raped, so it seemed utterly logical and natural to believe her. But, regardless of whether she was lying, did it really need to be all about race? Could Darryl really just care about what Steven was saying?

My appetite was gone, and I didn’t have the energy to repackage the food, so I put the entire meal, plates and all, in the fridge. Thoughts still swirling, I walked up the stairs. Darryl was in the shower, and I debated just climbing into bed and pretending that nothing was wrong, but I had a feeling he was angry enough to sleep on the couch, and since I was the one accusing him of being racist, I didn’t feel like I should take the bed. I grabbed some sweats to sleep in and a blanket from the closet before going back downstairs and curling up on the couch.

Only a couple of hours later, I woke up. I shook my head awake, the remnants of a dream in which my stepmother and a rather blurry actual mother yelled at me to go easy on Darryl. Funny how my subconscious connected my mother, who never had a stable marriage with saving my own. My stepmother I could understand, however. Her skin was only a few shades darker than my own, but she identified as black, and dad had shocked the entire family by marrying her. She had swept in and fixed up our crumbling lives, pulling Dad out of his tears about Mom and giving us parents again. I could almost hear her in my head now, telling me to get over what I thought Darryl was thinking and actually listen to him. After all, my believing Tawana wouldn’t forever prove to her that I wasn’t racist, and at this point, she was basically my mother. I shouldn’t have needed to prove anything to her.

As I woke up a bit more, I noticed noises coming from the kitchen. I sat up, rubbing my eyes, and stood, trying to stretch the stiffness left by sleeping on the couch out of my neck. Darryl was sitting at the kitchen table, and I could see a dark silhouette of the back of his head. I walked into the kitchen and sat across from him.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hi,” he responded.

We sat for a moment in silence before he spoke. “I couldn’t sleep. The bed felt empty.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You were angry that I insulted you, and you didn’t want to deal with me, I get it. There’s no need to apologize for that.”

“No, I’m sorry I called you racist.”

“Because you don’t want me angry, or because you’ve changed your mind?”

“Both. You’re right, my stepmother loves me, she doesn’t need proof, and I shouldn’t need it for myself.”

“So you believe me.”

“No, I still think Tawana’s telling the truth. Even if I do partially believe her to prove something, even ignoring that, I still think she’s a good person. I just think that you aren’t racist for believing your friend.”

“Okay.” He paused. “Well, I suppose you aren’t a reverse racist then.” He smiled.

“So we’re good.”

“Yeah. I love you.”

“Love you too.”

The egg timer went off behind him. When I stood to see what it was, he winced. I looked at him, confused. “What?”

“It’s just, um, look I wasn’t going to leave you or anything, I swear. I was just hungry, and we had cheese and leftover pasta, and…” he trailed off as I peered into the pot on the stove.

“You made macaroni.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t think you were going to talk to me anyways.”

“No, it’s fine.”

“Seriously?”

I thought about it for a second. “Seriously.” I wasn’t upset. I’d been afraid for years, but right then, talking to Darryl, who I loved and once again trusted, I wasn’t. “Like I said. We’re good.”

Ethnic Slurs

When discussing racial epithets with a black boy during U.S. history, you should

a-take a very serious tone and avoid saying any of said inappropriate terms.

b-insult him using said ethnic slurs

c-have an insightful discussion about the use of ethnic slurs by people past and present

d-google ethnic slurs and try to find the most ridiculous ones out there

Tea's answer is d, as demonstrated by her behavior today during U.S. history.

In this class, I was trying to find a racially insulting term that was not as bad as "nigger" but was nonetheless derogatory or had connotations that yielded associations with racism. I asked my group members, Joanie, Charles, and Emma, if they had any ideas. Emma, per usual, ignored me, but Joanie and Charles took it upon themselves to find something.

Joanie burrowed into her computer, not talking (which is unusual for her) while she looked. Charles immediately went to wikipedia and located this page. I went there as well, and he started at the top and I at the bottom, trying to find something suitable.

'Alligator bait' and 'gable' were bad enough, but by the time he reached 'porch monkey,' Charles couldn't take it any more. He dissolved into laughter, exclaiming over how utterly ridiculous it was. "Porch monkey! What?"

Not to be one-upped, I kept looking. "How about 'moon cricket?'"

"Moon cricket? Seriously? Like, what?"

I began laughing as well. "Could you seriously call somebody that with a straight face? I mean honestly, 'you moon cricket, you!' just sounds ridiculous!'

We kept laughing, and Joanie finally noticed us and looked up. "What's so funny?" she asked.

Charles waved a dismissive hand.

"Well," said Joanie, "I found the jackpot."

The racial slurs database contains such gems as 'cricket' 'dorito' and 'ghetto hampster'. To me, this sort of thing seems more ridiculous than rude, but I suppose that if someone had the nerve to call me 'fish-belly' or 'ghoul,' I would be upset. Even if the slurs themselves are ridiculous, I think it's the way they're said that creates the offensiveness.

Racism Today

Yesterday, I went to the DMV and got my learners permit. For the picture, there is no flash, so I was totally unprepared and giving an odd sort of half smile when the camera went off. I hadn't brushed my hair before going, so it was pretty much everywhere, and when I got the permit, picture and all, my skin looked fairly dark, with my lips darker than usual and my brown eyelashes and blue eyes looking anything but. My Mom looks at the little plastic card and says, "that's a horrible picture of you." Gee, thanks ma! She then continued with, "you look middle eastern!"

Note to my mother- "Middle-Eastern" is not a synonym for fugly. Just sayin'