White Girl: A Story of School Desegregation

Belonging and Not Belonging

118 At the Open High School, I felt like I usually received a silent rundown when I tried to make conversation: “Who are you? Do you get high? Are you cool enough to talk to?” I felt far more welcome in the B’nai B’rith Youth Organization, a group for Jewish teens. At the first meeting I attended, I knew no one, but a lot of the girls made it a point to introduce themselves and ask me about myself. When I joined B’nai B’rith, I instantly became part of all the things I had been missing: Saturday night parties, sleepovers at girls’ houses, Wednesday pool or gym nights at the Jewish Center, and an instant dating network. There were even proms once a year, something too conventional for the Open High to sponsor. After so many years of social isolation at school, I had resigned myself to being invisible and unpopular. This group gave me a chance to make friends, go to movies and hockey games, and dance to Top 40 records—to feel normal at long last. Nobody else went to the Open High, and I don’t remember any other girls who had been bused, but it didn’t matter. Being Jewish knocked aside these potentially divisive differences. As nice as it was to feel accepted, I still found myself living my life in different compartments. The B’nai B’rith world was a complete retreat from my school life. At VCU, where I took my English, history , and language classes, I was at least four years younger than most of the students, many of whom bragged of their sexual exploits in poetry workshops or swaggered around the campus carrying six-packs of beer. I did my work and kept quiet, afraid that talking too much would reveal my identity and make everyone label me “jailbait.” When one professor announced to his entire class that the high-school student among them had earned the highest grade on the midterm, I leaned over, face burning. I was far from proud. I didn’t want to seem like a child wonder. I certainly didn’t feel like one. All I had done was study for the test. More than that, I didn’t want to be “outed.” I wanted to blend in as much there as I did anywhere . Belonging and Not Belonging 119 The other thing that prevented me from fully identifying with B’nai B’rith was my relationship with Andrew, who wasn’t Jewish. My mother never forbade me from dating non-Jews, though she did say she thought I would have more in common with Jewish boys. I was willing to tell my Jewish friends about Andrew and eventually to stop dating other people, but I couldn’t bring him to any of the B’nai B’rith events. This was a Jewish-only group; outsiders were unwelcome , and I don’t recall anyone breaking that rule. To mix non-Jews into the group would have ruined our sense of community, made us feel like we did anywhere else. Though Andrew didn’t like being left out, I considered my B’nai B’rith membership too important to drop. I coped the same way I coped with singing “Dixie” at camp one month, then slinking through the halls at a desegregated school the next. I had one identity as an Open High student and Andrew’s girlfriend; another as a Jewish teen; another as a high-school teenager trying to pass myself off as an ordinary college student. I felt like an actress with different lines to remember and recite at the appropriate times. ...