for cosmetic dentists and personal injury lawyers. Virtually every surface was concrete, except for the jungle gym, which was made from cast iron and about as safe and appealing to play on as a giant perforated skillet.
My playmates and I ran around this yard like the Rainbow Coalition on amphetamines. We zoomed about playing freeze tag, then “Hot Peas and Butter,” then “Red Light Green Light,” then staged kamikaze jumps off the monkey bars, then got into elaborate pile-up crashes on our assorted tricycles, bicycles, and Big Wheels, then held competitions seeing who could leap off the highest section of the concrete retaining wall without knocking out a tooth.
No one had to tell us that our skin might be different colors, but underneath we were all the same. Given the amount of blood we spilled in that backyard every day, we saw this firsthand.
Still, our parents weren’t taking any chances. Flush with the activism of the 1960s, they were determined to raise us free from all prejudice—a goal which they seemed to attempt primarily through the strategic use of T-shirts, lunchboxes, and sing-alongs. Every kid’s Fisher-Price phonograph had “Free to Be … You and Me” spinning around on its turntable. For our birthdays, we received black Raggedy Ann dolls and consciousness-raising children’s books with titles like
The World Is a Rainbow
or
Che Guevara: An I Can Read Book!
On television, we watched animated versions of the Harlem Globetrotters and the Jackson 5 every Saturday morning, as well as the cartoon
Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids,
which, just like
Josie and the Pussycats,
ended each week with the characters playing in a rock band and singing snappy songs about loving each other and getting along. The head shop on 94th Street sold “Black Is Beautiful” T-shirts, peace sign necklaces, and buttons that read “America: Let’s Get It Together” that showed a map of the U.S. constructed from profiles of people of different races. Every day, we jumped rope and played freeze tag to the funky Top 10 hits that emanated from transistor radios on stoops throughout the neighborhood. The scorching anthem of “Brother Louie”:
She was black as the ni-ight/Louie was whiter than white…
Sly and the Family Stone singing “
I-hi-hi love everyday people…
”
On weekends, we were trotted over to the Goddard-Riverside Community Center for special multicultural “family events,” where a white woman named Minna Bromberg had us sing Swahili folk songs and drink unfiltered apple juice. Minna was a pale woman with cheekbones like paper cutters and blue-black hair pulled back so tightly it virtually improvised a face-lift. Although she dressed in tie-dye and armloads of hammered brass jewelry, she was really far too high-strung to be a hippie. “Goddamn it,” she’d mutter as she scrambled amid the onslaught of hysterical, folksinging six-year-olds. “Where the hell are those peace posters? Could we please have a little more quiet in here, please?”
Other weekends, my friends and I sat squirming and poking each other as we watched multiethnic “Shadow Box” puppet shows, listened to Hopi storytellers, and clapped in time as a bearded banjo player named Satchel led us in one interminable round after another of “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.”
“Remember, children,” Satchel instructed cheerily at the end of each concert, “when you look at people, don’t see the color of their skin. Only the content of their character.” He always said this extra slowly and loudly for emphasis, as if we were not actually children but mildly retarded beagles.
To my playmates and me, this was perplexing. That everyone was equal was obvious to us. As far as we were concerned, the only legitimate reason to ever discriminate against anyone was if they happened to be your little brother or sister. In that case, it was perfectly acceptable to relegate them to the role of “deaf-mute orphan” and
My playmates and I ran around this yard like the Rainbow Coalition on amphetamines. We zoomed about playing freeze tag, then “Hot Peas and Butter,” then “Red Light Green Light,” then staged kamikaze jumps off the monkey bars, then got into elaborate pile-up crashes on our assorted tricycles, bicycles, and Big Wheels, then held competitions seeing who could leap off the highest section of the concrete retaining wall without knocking out a tooth.
No one had to tell us that our skin might be different colors, but underneath we were all the same. Given the amount of blood we spilled in that backyard every day, we saw this firsthand.
Still, our parents weren’t taking any chances. Flush with the activism of the 1960s, they were determined to raise us free from all prejudice—a goal which they seemed to attempt primarily through the strategic use of T-shirts, lunchboxes, and sing-alongs. Every kid’s Fisher-Price phonograph had “Free to Be … You and Me” spinning around on its turntable. For our birthdays, we received black Raggedy Ann dolls and consciousness-raising children’s books with titles like
The World Is a Rainbow
or
Che Guevara: An I Can Read Book!
On television, we watched animated versions of the Harlem Globetrotters and the Jackson 5 every Saturday morning, as well as the cartoon
Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids,
which, just like
Josie and the Pussycats,
ended each week with the characters playing in a rock band and singing snappy songs about loving each other and getting along. The head shop on 94th Street sold “Black Is Beautiful” T-shirts, peace sign necklaces, and buttons that read “America: Let’s Get It Together” that showed a map of the U.S. constructed from profiles of people of different races. Every day, we jumped rope and played freeze tag to the funky Top 10 hits that emanated from transistor radios on stoops throughout the neighborhood. The scorching anthem of “Brother Louie”:
She was black as the ni-ight/Louie was whiter than white…
Sly and the Family Stone singing “
I-hi-hi love everyday people…
”
On weekends, we were trotted over to the Goddard-Riverside Community Center for special multicultural “family events,” where a white woman named Minna Bromberg had us sing Swahili folk songs and drink unfiltered apple juice. Minna was a pale woman with cheekbones like paper cutters and blue-black hair pulled back so tightly it virtually improvised a face-lift. Although she dressed in tie-dye and armloads of hammered brass jewelry, she was really far too high-strung to be a hippie. “Goddamn it,” she’d mutter as she scrambled amid the onslaught of hysterical, folksinging six-year-olds. “Where the hell are those peace posters? Could we please have a little more quiet in here, please?”
Other weekends, my friends and I sat squirming and poking each other as we watched multiethnic “Shadow Box” puppet shows, listened to Hopi storytellers, and clapped in time as a bearded banjo player named Satchel led us in one interminable round after another of “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.”
“Remember, children,” Satchel instructed cheerily at the end of each concert, “when you look at people, don’t see the color of their skin. Only the content of their character.” He always said this extra slowly and loudly for emphasis, as if we were not actually children but mildly retarded beagles.
To my playmates and me, this was perplexing. That everyone was equal was obvious to us. As far as we were concerned, the only legitimate reason to ever discriminate against anyone was if they happened to be your little brother or sister. In that case, it was perfectly acceptable to relegate them to the role of “deaf-mute orphan” and
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