All Day

by Liza Jessie Peterson

  “Girl, you’ll be just fine,” Ms. G said as I took a sip of tea. She sucked her teeth. “You ain’t no punk. Where you from?”

  “I’m originally from Philly, but now I live in Brooklyn.”

  “Awww yeah, Brooklyn in the house!” Ms. G made me laugh. “You got this, girl, but they’re gonna test you, so remember it’s better to start off hard at first and then soften up. Not the other way around. If they see you’re soft, then it’s game over and they run the class.”

  “Okay” is all I can manage to say. My head is still spinning from punching a time card in a time clock at seven-fucking-thirty in the morning.

  “I’m two doors down from you,” she continues. “I’ll check in on you during my prep.”

  I’m glad I met someone who clearly knows the ropes and is friendly to me, willing to guide me through this morass of I-don’t-know-what-the-fuck-I-have-gotten-myself-into.

  “Oh, and one very important thing to remember… see that class list you’re holding in your hand? Don’t lose it. You’ll need it to take attendance so you know exactly who’s supposed to be in your class and who’s not. They know you’re new so they’re gonna try to have all their little friends up in your class, and you’ll have more drama and ruckus than you need. Take attendance first thing when they come in, and don’t hesitate to send whoever is not on your list out of your class, immediately.”

  “Thanks for that, Ms. G, will do.”

  She proceeds with the warning: “You don’t want to be caught with a student who’s not supposed to be in your class, because if a fight breaks out and one of them is not on your student roster, you’re gonna be the one asked why was so-and-so in your class in the first place. Get to know who’s in your class ASAP.”

  “Thanks for the heads-up, Ms. G. I really appreciate it.”

  “No problem, Ms. Peterson. I got you, girl. I’ll stop by your class later,” she chirps in her friendly way as she struts out of the office.

  I walk down the hot, musty hallway to my classroom thinking, Oh great, I’ve got the thuggest of thugs in my class. Well, isn’t this just dandy? Thank God it’s only for three weeks and, since it’s the end of the school year, I’ll just be babysitting until June 23 anyway. I can manage that, goons and all.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Sizing Me Up

  By 7:50 a.m. the class begins to trickle in as the students are brought up from their respective housing areas to the school floor. They are much more quiet and orderly than I expected. But it’s early, too early for me, and they seem to be feeling the same way. They shuffle along, escorted by correctional officers. Some enter my class and sit, while others linger in the doorway, talking to other students who pass by on their way down the hall. Most of the boys have on their street clothes because they have not yet been sentenced and are detainees, not city or state property. Their fate is still being gambled and negotiated in court. New York is one of two states in America that try sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds as adults, even for nonviolent crimes. Some kids have been sentenced to serve a City Year* at Rikers (which is eight months); some will be released on their next court date; some have been going back and forth to court for over a year; some are waiting to be sentenced. Very few are able to post bail, and most just sit in jail while their court dates get repeatedly adjourned month after month after month. The majority of the kids have an overworked, underpaid, inattentive, court-appointed Legal Aid lawyer, which means they will likely wind up taking a plea deal* from the district attorney, who wants a conviction and usually gets it. Around 90 percent of all criminal defendants in the United States plead guilty without a trial because they can’t afford a paid lawyer. The risk of taking it to trial to prove your innocence means the defendant will languish in jail, sometimes for years, awaiting trial and the DA will raise the stakes very high by offering a horrendous amount of time for the crime should the jury reach a guilty verdict. Blowing trial is way too risky so plea deals are the norm, especially for a kid who is scared and wants to go home, even if it means they’ll have a felony on their record.

  From misdemeanors to felonies, and from criminal mischief† to murder, all the guys on the school floor have one thing in common: They are embroiled in a justice system that criminalizes Black and Latino youth. As I look at the faces of these kids, still young enough to outgrow their shoes, I wonder what they did to land themselves in jail.

  I am stunned to find out how normal adolescent rebellious behavior can land a Black boy in prison. A school fight can brand him a criminal with an assault charge, whereas white kids are often easily forgiven, getting nothing more than detention and a slap on the wrist. In predominately Black schools, discipline-related issues that a school dean or principal should normally handle are now handled by police officers and settled in a court of law.

  Jerome, a tall, lanky skater boy, was charged with assault and petty larceny because he got into a fistfight at school and stole the other kid’s phone… Bernard jumped the turnstile and had a warrant for missing a court date… Kevin sold drugs… Maurice got caught with a gun… Cedrick smart-mouthed a cop… Russell stole a car… Victor set a trash can on fire… Sammy graffitied a wall… Johnathan snatched a purse… Daniel robbed a bodega… Nasiem got caught with illegal firecrackers… Jeremy violated probation… Wilson had dirty urine… Shaleik hustled bootleg DVDs… Stephon got caught with a gun… Craig tried to kill somebody… Shane did kill somebody… James refused to snitch… Michael didn’t cooperate with the cops… Devante took the fall for a gang member in order to protect his family… Kevin had mistaken identity… Jalil was a booster*… Tyshaun was a burglar… Kareem sold weed…

  The list goes on and on, but one thing connects them all: Whether innocent or guilty, charged with crimes that are violent or petty, they are all in the same boat: teenagers at Rikers Island mandated to go to school—and to my class.

  Several students are wearing state-issued, beige khaki pants with matching khaki button-down shirts, which indicate they have been sentenced and have a release date. The khaki kids are sprinkled in with the vast majority of kids, who haven’t been sentenced and are wearing the clothes they were arrested in. Most have on jeans and T-shirts. Despite the semi-freedom of the nonsentenced kids, who are able to wear their street clothes, giving them some semblance of individuality, there are still very strict Department of Corrections regulations that prohibit certain colors (no red, no blue for obvious Blood/Crip gang-related reasons), and no brand-name labels (a restriction that reportedly reduces violence).

  For adolescents, not being able to wear designer labels is a painful sentence to no-frills purgatory, since they are all at that annoying stage of being what they wear, equating designer tags with personal value and self-worth. Sad but true. (I too succumbed to that teenage malaise and became a proud victim of materialism. I was a high school Gucci girl, to be exact. Without my Gucci bag and gaudy labels, I felt incomplete, naked, less than, and corny. It was a phase.) I can relate to their materialistic pain.

  Almost all of the kids are wearing state-issued, bright neon orange slip-on canvas sneakers, but a few of them are sporting regulation black Reeboks or the old-school white-on-white Nike Uptowns. The Reebok/Nike kids were either wearing them at the time of arrest or a loved one had been kind enough to send them a pair so they could avoid the mandatory super-ugly, nondescript canvas slip-ons. Most of the fancy designer sneakers have removable innersoles where contraband and weapons can be hidden, making them a security risk. But since the black Reeboks and Nike Uptowns don’t have removable insoles, and because of their generic color (all black or white), they’re allowed. Timberland boots are banned because they have steel toes. When it comes to security, the DOC leaves no stone unturned. The fancy, trendy, fresh, fly sneakers the boys might have been sporting out on the town and at the time of arrest wind up being taken from them and placed in property, along with other items like their wallets, jewelry, and jackets (including money). Sometimes items in property turn up “missing,” and
an inmate rarely has recourse. Almost all of the boys wind up being issued the Patakis,* which the kids brilliantly nicknamed pumpkin seeds† because of their neon orange color and shape. By the end of my three weeks, I will have a complete jailhouse lexicon. The poetry and figurative language that flows effortlessly from their foul mouths amazes me.

  The first student who makes his way into my class is Naquan, wearing a brown extra-large sweatshirt and gray sweatpants too tight for his big ass. He takes the seat closest to the door, stretching his oversize body across the desk, peering out the door to see who’s coming down the hall. He occasionally throws up gang signs to his comrades, who briefly enter my class to give him the ritualistic handshake that resembles a funky finger-puppet soul minuet.

  “Nigga, that’s why your breath smells like diaper shit!” yells a short skinny kid with his hair half-braided and half-afroed before flipping Naquan the middle finger. Naquan jumps up and runs to the doorway yelling, “Nigga, that’s why I saw you in the town with a patent leather Wu-Tang jacket on, nigga!”

  The entire hallway cracks up laughing.

  Naquan is sizing me up now. More students come in. As I continue taking attendance, about eight guys are sitting in my class who aren’t supposed to be. I shoo them out.

  “But miss, this is my class, my name’s just not on the list cuz I just got here…” One of the guys tries to swindle me.

  “I was born at night, but not last night. You can’t stay in my class. Go where you’re supposed to be.”

  Surprisingly, he doesn’t give me much of a fight as he swivels from out of the desk he tried to occupy. “Yo, son, she don’t play, but she mad cute though, ya heard, miss?”

  “Ummhmm, go where you’re supposed to go,” I say in a stern voice with an ice-grill face.

  “Good morning.” I make it a point to greet each young man who comes in the room. “Good morning,” I repeat, sometimes with a soft smile. “Good morning,” sometimes with a stoic face. This is a balancing act. Can’t appear too nice, but can’t be too mean at first. I have to be flexible, keep them on their toes so they can’t peg me right away. Most don’t respond to me, some grumble, and some return the greeting.

  I put my name, Ms. Peterson, on the board, but immediately they begin to call me Ms. P, since they refuse to try to remember my name, and nicknames are standard hood ritual. Ms. P. I guess I’ll have to be.

  “Yo, Ms. P, where you from? Brooklyn I bet,” asks one kid.

  “Naw, nigga, she look like a Harlem chick!” another kid yells from the back of the class. He’s brushing his hair, slouched down in his seat, looking at me from head to toe with a gaze too grown for his adolescent baby face. He thinks he’s cool.

  “Excuse me but I am not a chick. I’m a grown woman, and it doesn’t matter where I’m from, because right now I’m at C-74, just like you.” I have to put my grown-woman foot down and set a boundary for how I will and will not be addressed. They’re feeling me out.

  As I begin to write an assignment on the board a kid with pimples yells out, “I know you don’t expect us to do work. You can’t be serious. You going hard-body, miss, and it ain’t that serious!”

  Using my strongest theater voice to project loudly and sternly without yelling, I say, “I have high standards. And as long as I’m here, trust and believe, we will do work, brother.”

  “Miss, this jail! We criminals!” the pimply-face kid shoots back.

  “Malcolm X said, ‘To have once been a criminal is no disgrace. To remain a criminal is the disgrace.’ Elevate your mind, Black man. And as long as I’m here teaching, that’s what we’re going to do… elevate.”

  “Tell it, sister girl!” yells Xavier, a tall, slim diesel kid with deep mahogany skin, chiseled features, and high cheekbones. His face is a gorgeous African mask. And he is clearly the drama king and alpha male in class. Many students defer to him, making it obvious that he has some level of rank in the housing area.* He seems to take a liking to me. This will be helpful.

  I ask Xavier in a familiar ’round-the-way tone, “What you know about Malcolm X?”

  “Come on now, how you gonna play me, miss? That’s my son. Malcolm, yo, that was a strong Black man right there. That’s why I’m X too.” He slaps his chest with pride.

  “Nigga, you X cause your name is Xavier,” Naquan quips. “You ain’t no Muslim nigga. I saw you buying pork rinds in commissary,* nigga.”

  Xavier snaps back in a half-joking, half-serious growl, “Yo, watch your mouth, nigga. They don’t sell no fucking pork rinds in commo,† you dumb-ass nigga with them high-water skintight sweatpants on looking like bitch-ass capris. Nigga, shut the fuck up!”

  The class is in hysterics, having big fun snapping on each other and playing the dozens, but I have to nip it in the bud or else this could escalate into chaos.

  “All right, all right, relax,” I say, laughing. “Ain’t no niggas in here, and please don’t use that word, at least not in my class.”

  Maxwell, a handsome kid with brown satin nutmeg skin, sits slouched in the back row brushing his hair with slow meditation-like strokes. Hair brushing isn’t just for grooming; it’s soothing, like hugging yourself or sucking your thumb. It calms them down, this jailhouse Zen of hair brushing. Having a brush is also a luxury and status symbol; it means someone loves you enough to send it to you and you are respected enough that no one has taken it from you.

  Maxwell’s donning a fresh haircut with shiny, soft waves rippling across his head and sporting crisp white-on-white Nike Uptowns. His beauty has a commanding presence similar to that of Xavier, but unlike loud-mouth X, who holds court like a skilled street corner ghetto jester, Maxwell’s energy is old-school, cat-daddy smooth and mysterious. The boy is fine.

  “Miss, come on!” he says. “You sound like my grandmother or something. This ain’t like back in the old-timey days. When we say it, we mean it differently. It ain’t negative no more. Everybody say ‘nigga’ now. We can’t stop saying that word, miss. That’s unrealistic, ’cause niggas gonna stay calling niggas niggas.” He’s being a smart-ass and has garnered an amen corner.

  Naquan chimes in, “Word! I ain’t gonna never stop using that word son, ya feel me, my nigga.”

  This is never an easy discussion. Most urban kids use the word nigga uncontrollably like a noun, a pronoun, an interjection, a curse, and a compliment. They aren’t even aware how much they say it. They inherited the word from older generations who were stumbling through post-traumatic slave syndrome and still are today. The elders bequeathed this mangled, controversial, and highly charged word to us. Today it has become that much more haunting, as the children casually swing it loudly in public and in front of white people, hitting the elders in the head, making them cringe and silently cry. It’s a word that hurts, and I don’t like hearing the kids use it because they have no frame of reference to its painful history, and they’re so reckless with their ignorance. It feels like a pinch when I hear them drench conversations with it. And yet when I am in the private company of close friends, sometimes it rolls off my tongue comfortably. My father and uncles were great men, and they all used the word when holding court, talking shit or fussing. It’s a contradiction and internal conflict I haven’t quite resolved.

  The word is as complex as our history. It can be used as a term of endearment or as an insult, depending on the context and tone. My dad said African-Americans are superhumans, magical niggas of the world who survived the Middle Passage, European diseases, and slavery. And we performed alchemy when we snatched the poison from the python by taking back the power of that whipping-stick word white people used on us. He said Black folks take slop, stir it in a pot, season it, and make song around it, for survival. Nigga. It’s a word that we can use but white people can’t—and definitely shouldn’t. There’s a subtext of power wherein Black people have something that white people don’t have free access to. It’s a word white folks have to whisper and sneak to say lest they be seen as ugly racists—or worse, get their ass
beat. Yes, it’s a double standard. Black folks have normalized a multitude of double standards living in a white-dominated society rooted in a long history of white supremacy. We know the rules. A young white man running down the street is just running; maybe he’s late for school. A young Black man running down the street is seen as suspicious; he must have committed some crime. Police will stop him, maybe even shoot him. A white youth in a hoodie is just wearing casual sports gear; maybe he’s about to go jogging. A Black youth in a hoodie is a thug,; he is probably a criminal, might have a gun. Police will stop and frisk him. A white woman who talks back to a cop might get a ticket or a warning. When a Black woman talks back to a cop, she’s dragged out of her car, tased, arrested, and might be killed. A Black person will be sentenced more harshly in a court of law for the exact same crime that’s committed by a white person. White people taking food from a grocery store for survival during Hurricane Katrina were “finding food”; Black people taking food were “looters.” The Second Amendment protects white citizens, affording them the right to bear arms and openly carry shotguns in a mall. The mere sight of a Black man with a gun, even with a permit in an open-carry state, could mean an immediate death sentence. Black children with toy guns were shot by police in Baltimore and Cleveland. The list goes on and on. Black folks are used to it. It’s not fair. But that’s the way it is, currently. So yes, using the word nigga is a double standard, maybe the only one Black people own. Nigga, twisted and layered. Like our history.

  “Ms. P, it’s not that deep, and we’re not saying nigger, we saying ‘nigga,’” says Alex, a pudgy Pillsbury Doughboy–looking Latino kid with fuzzy cornrows.

  “It’s the same word. It doesn’t matter how it’s spelled. Come on,” I argue.

  “Naw, the ‘er’ makes the difference, miss.”

  “Alex, please. Give me a break. Do you hear Mexicans calling themselves wetbacks or Puerto Ricans referring to themselves as spicks or Jews calling themselves kikes? We’re the only people who refer to ourselves using a demeaning term.”