mostly nonfiction and bakersfield news | September 1st, 2009
How I Became Human
D.R. Haney, author of Banned For Life, talks about childhood discrimination and the event that turned him around on TheNervousBreakdown.com today.
Growing up working-class in a small Southern city, I early acquired a racist vocabulary. This was by no means encouraged by my parents, who were mortified when, at four or so, I referred to a fellow customer at Sears as a nigger. I have no memory of doing that — I was told about it years later — but I’m sure I was baffled by the punishment I received. The kids in my neighborhood used the word “nigger” as a matter of course. To them, it was an appropriate term for a person of color, and I followed suit, even after the Sears incident. Why punish someone for calling a bird a bird? And why would a bird object? So, I think, my reasoning went.
At the time, I barely knew any black people, but that changed when I started school. On my first day of the first grade, a black classmate spoke out of turn and was made to stand in the trash can. I likewise got into trouble for, among other things, spontaneously performing the Tarzan cry, and though I was spared the trash-can treatment, my teacher must have decided I was going to be too much to handle, and quickly had me moved to another class. My new teacher, Mrs. Orr, was black, and she told me to have a seat when I arrived one morning in the middle of a lesson. I remained standing and stuck my tongue out at her.
“Why did you do that?” she asked. [...]
READ THE FULL ARTICLE on TheNervousBreakdown.com
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