White Girl: A Story of School Desegregation

No One Wants You Here

55 The first few months of middle school I remember in a physical way: I kept my head down, body stiff, and shoulders hunched forward so I wouldn’t have to look at anyone. To be friendly was to invite a reaction like Vanessa’s. Every time I walked through the halls, which was at least seven times per day between switching classes and going to the cafeteria for lunch, the glares, elbows in my side, and occasional outstretched foot trying to trip me reminded me that I was perceived as an invader. Trained from an early age to be racially open and to accept integration, I was stunned by the hostility. The memories come back in a collage: I remember the girls’ bathroom , a crowd in front of the mirror, their elbows jostling me so I can’t see my own face. Their combs lift their hair high, higher, into proud aureoles. My own hair is lying flat against my scalp, limp along my shoulders. The tap of a pack of Kool cigarettes against the wall. Mentholated smoke blurring the air. The sting of hot ashes flicked onto my bare arm. I back up. Don’t say anything. Slip into a bathroom stall, lock the door, and rattle it to check if the lock really works. Just a flimsy metal bar against the possibility that a girl could open the door to the bathroom stall and stare at me on the toilet, her rude laughter echoing through the room. It has already happened once, could happen anytime. I pee fast, the hot, shameful gush of it. Wipe fast. Twist the faucet at the sink in the corner, where a few wiry hairs from one of the girls who fixed her hair before me have fallen into the white bowl. Don’t even try to get a paper towel, because the crowd swirls around the dispenser. I might have to say, “Excuse me,” and bring on hooting laughter. Rush out, breathless, stand against the wall for a minute, holding my books, remembering where I have to go for my next class. Other memories come from the girls’ locker room in the school basement, across the hall from the cafeteria. Loretta, the only other white girl in the class, and I are in a corner, cowering, as we change No One Wants You Here 56 into our baggy, yellow gym suits with snaps up the front. All the other girls are staring at us. I’m too pudgy in the middle, too big on top, too pale everywhere. Upstairs in the gym, calisthenics. I’m the last picked for any sport. A volleyball game, an accidental collision , an angry shove to the floor. The teacher blowing her whistle, motioning me to get up. Loretta, the other white girl, with her palms up—she can’t help me. I limp back into position, avoid the ball then and forever. No showers. Deodorant sprayed at my sweat. Disheveled for the rest of the day. In the cafeteria, someone hawking up phlegm behind me. The warm spittle oozing into my scalp. The boy and his friend running past the metal shelves where lunch trays slide, laughing, “Aww, haw, haw.” Two white girls handing me a napkin, marching me into the bathroom, “Wipe it up.” My scalp prickling as if it had been slapped. No point in telling a teacher—what am I, a crybaby? The teachers try to pretend this is an ordinary school, and they never use the words black and white to describe us. They are stuck working here, and they don’t appear to know the first thing about helping us get along. Shut up and put up. No one wants you complaining. No one wants you here at all. ...