The Part of the Story I Can Speak to
I I can't tell you what it was like
to be any of those other 4700 students
at Erasmus Hall high school in those four years,
moving through the world in skin
that marked them as other
than right, normal, cultured,
speaking in voices with the lilt
of the Caribbean, or the soft vowels
passed down by grandparents
who moved north, at home
in a native tongue that wasn’t
book English.
I can’t tell you what it was like to sit
in classrooms where the people at the front of the room
never looked like me.
I don’t know what it was like
To audition for musicals by and about
white people as a person with brown skin,
to have “the cannon” we were taught exclude
everyone who looked like me
(except that they were nearly all male).
Those are not my stories to tell.
I was the white girl;
the one who was assumed
to be smart and articulate
to have good support at home
and good study habits, who was
expected to succeed.
I was the one who was expected to see herself
in all the stories being taught, but instead
saw only her own alienation.
II I grew up knowing
that white meant privileged
and responsibility.
I am not one of those white people
who spent her childhood in some carefully defended enclave of whiteness.
We lived in Hyde Park, before it was
where Barak and Michelle lived,
where the U of C was expanding
into the largely poor and black neighborhoods around it,
when there were arsons every week
in Woodlawn and Blackstone, blocks
from our apartment in the more
“integrated” (whiter) neighborhood.
I grew up knowing the cops were dangerous
even though my white girl face and hair
would probably have made me the victim
to be protected in their eyes.
My parents understood
the tragedies playing out in the American narrative,
where the concept of race kept us all in fear.
They chose, again and again, to engage;
to live where it was possible to work
side by side, with African-Americans and others
who were not-white, in organizations
that built real relationships, rooted
in common experience and respect
for each person’s strengths and gifts.
I grew up immersed in those stories,
but not those experiences.
They expected, I think, that for my brother and me
integration would just happen—or had happened;
that proximity would equal curiosity, respect, friendships.
They did not work at it. They did not
bring their work colleagues home. We did not
break bread with the families around us.
We were still Other, all of us,
separated by the great chasm built on the lies
of whiteness, and the truths of racism in America.
III There were five of us my freshman year.
I don’t think we were all in the Chorus.
They lived in the neighborhood,
in the big houses I saw when they invited me
to go Christmas caroling that December.
I remember Sharon, a tall girl who would be called “full figured,”
with a strong, almost masculine face,
the undisputed leader of the little pack of white girls I had
somehow become part of when I entered Erasmus Hall High School.
And I remember Melissa, red haired, round, raced, oval in overall shape,
with pale, freckled skin, Sharon’s second in all things.
They were all seniors, or, Sharon and Melissa were for sure.
The others I never knew anything about –
faceless, storiless white girls who vanished
at the end of my first year, along with Miss Harris,
the choir director who had auditioned and admitted me,
who got married and moved to California,
severing any sense of connection I had.
Others left that June too –
D’Artagnon Cortez, tall and gangly, sidekick
to Joseph Johnson, both leads in Guys and Dolls that spring.
Joseph lead us in the Hallalujah Chorus in the subway car
on our way to perform at the Hilton Hotel at Rockefeller Center,
melting the barriers between the 100+ black kids and the
handful of mid-morning, mostly white, riders
the familiar music, and our joy in it,
building a bridge so strong that some riders
found fellow altos or tenors to stand with
and sang along.
That year, I could almost feel like my lack of belonging was
just that I was new. Certainly I didn’t feel any more a part
of that group of white girls than I did the other freshmen,
all black or latinex except for Sheila Chong and I.
But when we sang,
and even when we traveled to sing,
I felt like part of the Chorus.
Not that I talked to people;
I rarely talked with people my age
unless we had some task to talk about.
I never understood
the rules for small talk,
never seemed to speak the language
fluently enough, never understood the point.
But that first year, it seemed like I might
be able to become part of the club, join in the easy intimacy
of those who’d been there longest, were more sure
of their undisputed place.
That year, I could believe that time and music would
weave me into the fabric of Erasmus,
a pale thread in a rich tapestry, my voice joining
with all the others, to create something beautiful.
IV I am not brave
about asking
people for their stories.
My parents, it seemed,
knew how to build relationships
across the lines of color and history
that filled my world.
But they didn’t teach me.
They didn't bring their black co-workers
and their families home for dinner.
There were no company picnics
for the wives and children
of the organizers of TWO and IAF;
no breaking bread and playing games together;
no chance to meet and perhaps talk
about what that commitment to social justice meant
for those of us who supported our fathers and husbands—and occasionally
wives and mothers—working 80 hours a week, every week
to build “mediating institutions”
that could manifest the beloved community.
My father built organizations and campaigns
one story and relationship at a time.
He understood deeply the power of discovering and creating
shared experience.
But he didn’t facilitate individual or house meetings for us.
Did he think it wasn’t necessary?
Did he assume that proximity was enough
despite all the counter evidence?
Did he believe this next generation
living in the world his work was intended to transform
would just find our way to each other?
Tasha Harmon, May 2018