“That’s really cool that you were that into helping kids.”
“Yeah, but after a year of working at the group home I quit and switched my major to English. I was having nightmares every night. I just couldn’t detach myself from those kids. I’m too sensitive for that kind of work. I was depressed all the time. You’d be amazed what some of these girls had gone through, violence, abuse, rape, I just couldn’t take it. Half the black girls that walked in there were crack babies and half the white ones had Fetal Alcohol Syndrome or mothers that were on meth. They didn’t have a chance in hell. Sometimes I felt like someone should just drop a bomb on the entire ghetto.”
“Fuck did you say?”
Kenyatta’s face twisted up into a snarl as he spat his words out at me in anger. I pulled back, fearing for a second that he was about to physically attack me. He sensed my anxiety and did his best to relax his features and his posture. When he spoke again it was in calm measured tones.
“I’m from one of those ghettos and not everyone in there is smoking crack.”
“Yeah, but you’re an exception. The majority of them are.”
Again, I could see that it was taking everything he had not to lose his temper.
“No. The majority of them are not. The majority of the people in the ghetto are hardworking honest folks who were just given less opportunity than most. When you live in an environment where violence, drugs, and gangs are everywhere, coupled with the worst educational system imaginable, it takes an exceptional individual to crawl up out of that mess. I wasn’t an exceptional individual. I just had an exceptional mom who made sure that I never went to any of the neighborhood schools. She faked our address and gave me bus fare so that I could go to schools in predominantly white areas where the quality of education was better. If she hadn’t done that I’d probably be stuck right there in the ghetto with the rest of the kids I grew up with.”
“You can’t blame all the ills of the ghetto on education.”
“You’re a teacher and you don’t believe that education has that great an impact? Do you know that every single kid I know who went to my neighborhood high school instead of a magnet school or a Catholic high school or something is still right back there in the ghetto and most of them have drug habits or criminal records or both? They can trace seventy-five percent of the prison population in Oakland back to three high schools. Eighty percent of the prison population in America never graduated from high school. Rather than blowing the ghetto up or putting it under martial law they need to spend all that money they’re currently spending on more police and bigger prisons and put it into building better schools with better teachers. I mean, no offense, but when I was growing up teachers weren’t kids fresh out of college. The teachers I had were the same ones who taught my parents. Back then teaching was a career not a job. Not something you did for a while until something better came along. I mean, if you don’t believe that education makes a difference why are you even doing it?”
“Because I love kids. But you wouldn’t know what it’s like trying to teach children nowadays. I don’t exactly work in some rough inner-city school, but I do get a fair mixture of kids and you can almost tell the income level of each child by how well they perform in school. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like if I had to walk through a metal detector every morning and have security walk me to my car every afternoon after work. How the hell do you teach kids like that?”
Kenyatta’s nostrils flared.
“I can understand it might be easier for a kid to concentrate who has a full stomach when he comes to school, who didn’t wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of gunfire and have to hide in the bathtub because stray bullets were coming through the walls, who wasn’t listening to police helicopters thundering overhead all night long, who wasn’t dodging gang members, drug pushers, crack heads and crack whores everyday walking to and from school. Poor kids have a lot going against them, but that doesn’t make them any less intelligent or any more inherently violent. It just means that teachers have to work a little harder to keep them on track.”
“I do work hard. I give those kids everything I’ve got every day!”
“How can you when every time you see some poor black kid walk into your room you’ve already labeled him in your mind as a lost cause?”
“It has nothing to do with black or white. We’ve got white kids from the trailer parks who are in the same boat.”
“Yeah, but do you treat them the same? You don’t because you can relate to the kids from the trailer park. You clean up well, but I can still hear the faint hint of white trash country twang in your voice. It must have been hard work getting rid of that accent. I know. I had to do it too. My ghetto slur. Gangsta drawl. So, you can understand the white trailer trash, but not the black ghetto rats, am I right? Don’t answer now. Right now you’ll just get defensive. You won’t answer honestly. You’re going to tell me what you think or hope is true, not what you know is true. Go back to work tomorrow and just test yourself. Watch how you interact with each kid and tell me if you’re giving them all the same level of attention. I think you’ll be surprised.”
I stuck out my chin and rolled my eyes in self-righteous indignation. Who was this guy to talk to me like he knew me? He didn’t know shit about me. How dare he call me a damn racist? I jabbed a finger at his chest.
“I’ll do that. That’s fine. But let me ask you something, how much good do you think people like you are doing those kids by being apologists for them? By making excuses for them and blaming their environment or the educational system or institutionalized racism or the government or slavery or whatever? How much good do you think you’re doing them with all of that?”
He smirked and shook his head.
“A hell of a lot more than those who ignore them. Look, you’ve got a difficult job. No question. And I applaud you and all teachers for what you do. Putting up with these hardheaded kids can’t be easy. But if every school had enough qualified teachers, if they had enough books, enough computers, enough classrooms, smaller class sizes, so that they could actually do their jobs, if we flipped the script and started spending as much or more on giving a kid an education as we do on locking their asses up once they slip between the cracks, don’t you think your job would be easier?”
“Yes, yes it would. And you’re right. And I probably sound to you like some out of touch racist asshole.”
“Not at all. Out of touch? Perhaps. Racist. No. If you’re not from there how would you know what it’s like?”
“Well, you were right. I grew up in a trailer. I was as poor as any kid in the ghetto so I know a little bit about poverty.”
“Yeah, but crime is very different in a trailer park than it is in a crowded inner-city neighborhood.”
“Different but not better or worse. You don’t see many kids leaving the trailer park for Ivy League schools either.”
“I’m sure.”
“Look, I’m sorry. I know I’ve probably turned you completely off…”
“I’m not trippin’. I don’t expect white people to have a clue about the black experience. All your opinions are media created and the American media has an interest in demonizing the black male. Monsters sell newspapers and the young black male has become the American monster.”
“Yeah, and black people also have an interest in demonizing the white male and the white female for that matter. We make great scapegoats.”
I couldn’t help but smile when I said it. It was hard to believe I was in the middle of a crowded dance club with the most beautiful black man I’d ever seen having a political debate about race. It was just too surreal.
“You’re just baiting me now. Look, I have no animosity at all toward white women. You may not realize it, but white men have oppressed you as much as they have our people. Woman is the nigger of the world.”
“You’re quoting John Lennon?”
“Actually, I think that was Yoko Ono. I could quote Malcolm X if you’d prefer
?”
“Now who’s baiting who?”
“You started it.”
He smiled again, and again my heart did that little flutter. I couldn’t remember a man ever affecting me this way. It was disconcerting as hell.
“Sure, okay, women have it hard. Black people have it hard. So what are we supposed to do? Cry in our beer and blame everybody else while our lives continue to turn to shit?”
“Nope. We succeed and prosper despite of. Success is the best revenge.”
He winked at me when he said it as if we were some sort of co-conspirators. I smiled again and then laughed.
“Okay, I like that.”
“Still, once we get ours we have to go back to help those who may not have met with the same success. Like I said, I escaped the ’hood because I didn’t go to the neighborhood school and so I got a decent education. I was lucky, pure and simple. But that school graduates six-hundred students a year. Six hundred! Those who don’t end up in prison or on drugs end up on welfare or in minimum wage jobs, which is to say, right back in the ghetto. And there are hundreds of schools just like it all across the country. We can’t just turn our backs on them or flush the entire ghetto down the toilet. They deserve a piece of the American dream as much as the next man. We’ve got to help because the frustrated and ignored student of today is the drug-dealing, drug addicted murderer of tomorrow. Believe that.”
I nodded in agreement. Damn, I liked this man.
“You should be a politician.”
“A black politician who hangs out at nightclubs pickin’ up white girls wouldn’t really go over too well.”
“That’s probably true. You would have to give up the white girls.”
“Would you miss me?”
His smile looked almost predatory now as he leaned in closer to me and reached out to stroke my cheek with the back of his hand.
“We ain’t quite that tight yet.”
“We will be,” he said as he leaned in closer and brushed my hair away from my ear.
“Oh really?” I tried to sound cocky, but my knees were shaking.
His lecherous grin widened again into that big confident smile. His eyes softened then he shook his head and chuckled. He gave my hand a slight squeeze and pulled me closer until our bodies touched.
“You are beautiful,” he whispered in my ear.
“A beautiful, ignorant racist?” I blushed, thinking of some of the things I’d said earlier. I don’t know what the hell I’d been thinking. If ever there was a time for political correctness it was when talking to a six-six, two-hundred and sixty pound black man, especially when you were attracted to him.
“No. Just beautiful.”
How Kenyatta could have not been offended by some of the things I’d said was beyond belief. I kept wondering if he just wanted to fuck me so bad that he was suppressing the urge to pimp-slap me every time I said something stupid. But if all he wanted was some ass then why wasn’t he hittin’ on Tina? It’s not like it was difficult to tell that the girl was easy.
He stood there staring at me without saying a word as I looked at him and then looked away and blushed then looked back again only to find him still staring at me, causing me to turn away and blush again. It was the most sexually charged moment I’d ever had inside a nightclub and I’ve had sex in nightclubs before. But this was somehow more intense than any of the drunken groping and thrusting I’d done previously. All he was doing was holding my hand and staring at my face, but it was like I could feel him all over me. I forgot all about Tina. I forgot I was in a nightclub and forgot that Kenyatta was some stranger I’d just met. I felt like I was falling in love. But I didn’t believe in love at first sight.
“I have to go soon. Why don’t you give me your number and I’ll call you.”
“Why are you so interested in me? I know I just pissed you off with that little conversation and my friend would probably fuck you right now.”
He pulled back and looked at me. The smile was gone, but his eyes still had that warm consoling look in them along with that playful hint of mischief.
“Who says I want to fuck her? She’s drunk and conceited and you’re beautiful and sweet and yes, a little naive when it comes to race, but who isn’t?”
“I was getting you pissed off though wasn’t I?”
“Yeah, well, I tend to get a little worked up when it comes to racial issues. What black man in this country doesn’t?”
“So, then why even bother fucking with white girls? Why not just stick to black women? I’m sure they’d understand you better.”
“There’s a hell of a lot more to me than just the color of my skin. Just because a woman’s black doesn’t necessarily mean she’ll understand me any more than you do. Sure, she’ll get the race thing. But there’s much more to me than that. Besides, that would be playing it safe now wouldn’t it? What fun would it be if we all just stayed in our comfort zones? I believe in expanding my horizons. Besides, I’m taking Dick Gregory’s advice and trying to wipe out the white race by having sex with all the white women I can. I’m gonna breed you right out of existence.”
I laughed.
“You are crazy.”
“It could work though. That’s one crusade I could start without looking like a hypocrite. I could convince every black man in the country to sleep with white women and create a master race of mixed babies.”
“There is something seriously wrong with you.”
I was laughing so hard that tears were coming out of my eyes.
“You’re right. The sistas would definitely hate me. That would leave them with nothin’ but white boys. I’d wind up gettin’ my ass assassinated. So what do you think?” Do you think I should stick to my own kind? You’re not into brothers?”
I looked down at the floor, shuffling my feet nervously. Kenyatta reached out and lifted my chin so I was looking into his intense eyes again.
“I’m into you,” I answered, shrugging. “I’m into whatever feels right.”
“And do I feel right?”
I looked at his massive shoulders and bulging chest, his thick biceps and that flawless smile filled with perfectly straight, perfectly white teeth, the high cheekbones, and smoldering black eyes. He was intelligent and he had a sense of humor. I didn’t care what color he was. He was damn-near perfect.
“Yeah, you do.”
“Then give me your number so I can call you sometime.”
He pulled me close to him again, wrapping his arms around my waist and hugging me, still staring into my eyes.
“You are weird. I can’t really figure out what your deal is. But okay, I’ll give you my number.”
I wrote my phone number down and he took it and placed it in his pocket. Then he took my hand again and pulled me close to him once more.
“Give me a hug before I leave.”
I smiled and almost laughed.
“Are you serious?”
“You don’t want to hug me?”
I wrapped my arms around him and he leaned down and kissed my neck and shoulders then breathed heavy in my ear as he spoke in that deep luxurious voice of his.
“I’ll call you.”
“Yeah, sure you will.”
He did. He called me from work two days later while I was sitting at home in my t-shirt with what looked like a sea of bills spread out in front of me, wondering how I was going to pay off the two payday loans I’d taken out weeks before without taking out another one. When the phone rang I almost leaped for it, eager to have something to take my mind off my finances even if it was just Tina calling to brag about her latest sexual conquest or cry about her latest heartbreak.
“Natasha?”
“Yes? Who’s calling?” I was smiling already. I recognized the voice.
“This is Kenyatta.”
My heart did a somersault. I knew Tina had been betting he wouldn’t call. She was still certain he’d just been fucking with her and that the next time she went to the club he’d be there trying to get i
nto her well-traveled panties. I couldn’t wait to tell her she was wrong.
“Oh, hi. I didn’t think you’d call.”
There was a long pause.
“Where do you live?”
“Excuse me?”
“I want to come visit you. Where do you live?”
“I don’t even know you.” I almost giggled when I spoke, like some shy schoolgirl. Something about his voice was making me crazy.
“Well, you’re not going to get to know me over the phone. I hate talking on the phone.”
“I’m not into booty calls.”
“Then let’s not make this one.”
I didn’t even know what the hell he meant by that. He could have said anything to me and it would have worked. I didn’t care if it was a one night stand or not. I just wanted to look at him again. I wanted to see him look at me again, the way he had at the club, like I was the most desirable woman on earth. I should have been immune to all of this. I’d heard every line by men who just wanted to get inside me and then get out with as little hassle as possible. Men who called you their dream girl one day and then didn’t call you at all after you’d let them in your bed. But no matter how many times I’d been fucked over by men there was always a part of me that hoped the next one would be different. So I gave him the directions to my house.
I almost laughed when he showed up at my door wearing a suit and tie. I had never asked him what he did for a living, but whatever I had assumed certainly didn’t involve a business suit.
“Hi! Come on in.”
He walked into my apartment, removed his suit jacket, looked around, dropped the suit jacket onto the back of one of my kitchen chairs then casually reclined on my couch. If you didn’t know any better you’d have sworn he had been there a thousand times.
“Come sit with me.”
He held out his hand and I took it. His palms were rough and calloused, but the back of his hands were smooth as a woman’s. Even that I found strangely exciting. He continued holding my hand as I walked around from the back of the couch to the front and took a seat beside him. I was nervous as hell. He seemed so casual. Not the nervous excitement guys normally have when they enter a woman’s apartment for the first time and the possibility of sex is there. He was either confident that I would fuck him or he didn’t care either way. I was starting to perspire again.
400 Days of Oppression Page 3