case) in book bags the size of igloos. K. and I would call each other breathlessly on report card day to tally our As and A+s. (It was understood that the occasional B was too devastating to discuss.) We took such excessive pride in our academic achievements that when K. received an A instead of an A+ with a 98 average, we hurried to Mrs. H. to rectify this grievous error, with me along as his consigliere. Maybe Mrs. H. had gotten confused?
No. The A would stand, “because you’re pompous,” she told us.
Okay, so Mrs. H. wasn’t confused. But clearly she needed a sabbatical.
Looking back, though, Mrs. H. might have been onto something. K. and I
were
certain that our all-around fabulosity knew no bounds, and certainly not racial ones. Our high school was an oasis of suburban racial integration. These were the ’80s; “Ebony and Ivory,” Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney’s pop hit of the era, could have been our school song. Jheri-curled and Sun-In’d hairstyles were equally welcome at the best parties. Our school put on
The Wiz
with a multiracial cast, and when we did
The Crucible,
the drama coach was sensitive enough to ask the Black members of the troupe if we’d be uncomfortable playing the role of slave Tituba. “Ummmm . . . yeah,” I murmured, imagining my mother’s face if I’d dared to come home saying, “Hey, Mom! I’m going to play the slave in the school play! Invite the whole family!” She would’ve thought I’d lost my mind.
Still, I was secure enough in my two-word identity to wear different personas like the rubber bracelets that snaked up my arms. In playwriting workshop, I explored my younger days of dancing on the bed with a “blond” towel on my head in a thoughtful piece; after school, I giggled through the mall talking like a Valley girl with friends of every shape, size, and hue — we were like piano keys, melodious and harmonic, dancing to the same beat of mutual respect. We acknowledged the chocolate-and-peanut-butter perfection of Aerosmith and Run-D.M.C on “Walk This Way.” Smurf was both TV noun and dance-party verb, and Prince vs. Michael Jackson? Stumped us all. Just when
Thriller
and the moonwalk took our collective breath away,
Purple Rain
stormed in, wearing high-heeled boots and rolling pop, rock, heavy metal, and R&B into a glorious ball of awesome. Black and White, we all loved the spare beats and synthesizers of ’80s music (and the hair! Have you
seen
the
hair
? Seriously, google it. I’ll wait.).
So of course, my friends and I were sure our White classmates weren’t
racist.
Racists were red-faced people wearing white sheets. They were not sitting next to us in AP English or competing with us for the Individual Research Projects in Science Award. We giggled and got good grades alongside one another, we were on the honor roll together, and we collectively celebrated the rise of hip-hop and blue-eyed soul.
But surface harmony notwithstanding, there were cracks in the veneer.
When I proudly displayed one of Keith Haring’s giant Free South Africa posters in my room, a friend came to visit and went white with outrage (pun intended). “That poster seems like it’s saying the Black people should rise up and crush White people,” he said. “They should really
try talking to them first.
”
Of course.
The nearly fifty years of resistance to the government system of apartheid could not have possibly included some talking.
Even the music we shared started to feel a bit offbeat. As much as I admired the philanthropic sentiment, some of the lyrics in “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” the star-studded musical call for famine relief in Ethiopia, made me squirm. At school assemblies, the whole student body rapped and sang along to “Caravan of Love” and “King Holiday,” but the ugliness of Howard Beach, where a group of Black men were chased by a mob of White men through the streets of New York City and severely beaten, was only minutes away.
My visits to
No. The A would stand, “because you’re pompous,” she told us.
Okay, so Mrs. H. wasn’t confused. But clearly she needed a sabbatical.
Looking back, though, Mrs. H. might have been onto something. K. and I
were
certain that our all-around fabulosity knew no bounds, and certainly not racial ones. Our high school was an oasis of suburban racial integration. These were the ’80s; “Ebony and Ivory,” Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney’s pop hit of the era, could have been our school song. Jheri-curled and Sun-In’d hairstyles were equally welcome at the best parties. Our school put on
The Wiz
with a multiracial cast, and when we did
The Crucible,
the drama coach was sensitive enough to ask the Black members of the troupe if we’d be uncomfortable playing the role of slave Tituba. “Ummmm . . . yeah,” I murmured, imagining my mother’s face if I’d dared to come home saying, “Hey, Mom! I’m going to play the slave in the school play! Invite the whole family!” She would’ve thought I’d lost my mind.
Still, I was secure enough in my two-word identity to wear different personas like the rubber bracelets that snaked up my arms. In playwriting workshop, I explored my younger days of dancing on the bed with a “blond” towel on my head in a thoughtful piece; after school, I giggled through the mall talking like a Valley girl with friends of every shape, size, and hue — we were like piano keys, melodious and harmonic, dancing to the same beat of mutual respect. We acknowledged the chocolate-and-peanut-butter perfection of Aerosmith and Run-D.M.C on “Walk This Way.” Smurf was both TV noun and dance-party verb, and Prince vs. Michael Jackson? Stumped us all. Just when
Thriller
and the moonwalk took our collective breath away,
Purple Rain
stormed in, wearing high-heeled boots and rolling pop, rock, heavy metal, and R&B into a glorious ball of awesome. Black and White, we all loved the spare beats and synthesizers of ’80s music (and the hair! Have you
seen
the
hair
? Seriously, google it. I’ll wait.).
So of course, my friends and I were sure our White classmates weren’t
racist.
Racists were red-faced people wearing white sheets. They were not sitting next to us in AP English or competing with us for the Individual Research Projects in Science Award. We giggled and got good grades alongside one another, we were on the honor roll together, and we collectively celebrated the rise of hip-hop and blue-eyed soul.
But surface harmony notwithstanding, there were cracks in the veneer.
When I proudly displayed one of Keith Haring’s giant Free South Africa posters in my room, a friend came to visit and went white with outrage (pun intended). “That poster seems like it’s saying the Black people should rise up and crush White people,” he said. “They should really
try talking to them first.
”
Of course.
The nearly fifty years of resistance to the government system of apartheid could not have possibly included some talking.
Even the music we shared started to feel a bit offbeat. As much as I admired the philanthropic sentiment, some of the lyrics in “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” the star-studded musical call for famine relief in Ethiopia, made me squirm. At school assemblies, the whole student body rapped and sang along to “Caravan of Love” and “King Holiday,” but the ugliness of Howard Beach, where a group of Black men were chased by a mob of White men through the streets of New York City and severely beaten, was only minutes away.
My visits to
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