Asklemmy

4th grade, Memphis Tennessee, bussing had just been implemented and I was "that yankee kid" from Chicago. A spate of new private schools sprang up over night so the racist white families wouldn't mix their kids. At first, everything was OK. Then the hate rhetoric from our parents starting making its way into the classroom. With the confederate stars and bars flag flying in one corner of the classroom and the Tennessee state flag in the other, the teachers didn't help much either. Daily paddlings (public principal spankings with a wooden paddle over the intercom) also did not help distract from the general prison atmosphere.

I was one of three caucasian children in my class and, being from inner city Chicago, didn't understand why everyone was panicky and flailing around as if the world were ending. Until the most athletic kid in my grade decided my innocent and accepting ways were to be punished. Daily I was encircled at recess, surrounded by twelve to twenty boys who tried to push and shove me, occasionaly punching (as well as any 4th grader can actually do that) while I tried to fend them all off. I had been in a few scrapes in Chicago by then and had two brothers, so though while I was angry and confused, I wasn't in true fear for my life. I could fight better than any of them. When I got past a point of over the top anger at this, I would punch someone in the face and they would go down. The others would back away long enough for them to leave me alone for the rest of recess.

That athletic kid I metioned earlier was their ring-leader. He mocked me ceaselessly and my uber-christian upbringing had me turning the other cheek, ignoring him. He did not like that reaction at all. So one day, while surrounding me again, the kid pulled out a small knife from his pocket. He pointed it at me, said he was going to stab me in the face and started walking toward me. Now that scared me into action. I ran toward whom I thought of as the weakest kid surrounding me, punched him in the face hard (again as hard as a fourth grader can hit) and kept running this time. The athletic kid caught me from behind and managed to cut a two inch gash just outside my right eye socket. I backhanded him in the face then and he finally went down, hitting his head on a big rock. Unlike in the movies, that big rock didn't kill him or even send him to the hospital, but I am sure it hurt a lot. I ran all the way to the principal who was always "supervising" the playground. I had some hope for help, until I remembered that she was the mother of the kid who had just knifed me. She had seen me punch him into a rock.

While I was home that week of my suspension, my uncle gave me a switchblade and taught me how to intimidate someone with it. I was never bothered again.

BTW, that part of me that didn't understand what all the racist fuss was about is still in me. I later learned why and how things got so bad when I was a history minor in college. It still pisses me off that so many 4th grade kids were getting along just fine until the racists parents "imparted" their values. Violence is never the answer. But sometimes a little intimidation can go a long way to preserving the peace.