McSweater Vest picked us up like always and took us to the Freep. I’d gotten really nervous because today we had appointments to talk to the women who created the program. In the car, I started asking practice questions:
1. Is there a certain way you should talk to professional experts?
2. How do I know what questions to ask?
3. What if the women I was supposed to interview thought I was just some kid who didn’t know what she was doing?
“Whoa!” McSweater Vest said with a hearty laugh. I had to laugh, too. Maybe I was getting a little too hyped. I’d learned that the computer science field—and the science field as a whole—is full of African American women. The kind of bright, dignified, on-top-of-their-game women who did not resemble the portrayals of black women in memes or joke videos.
The kind of black woman I definitely wanted to be, whether I studied computer science or not!
He said, “I’m so happy to see you getting into your subject matter. It always helps when a journalist is really passionate about the story they have to tell.”
Red high-fived me.
We parked and did our usual greetings with J., the security dude in the green blazer. Not long after we arrived, Buffalo Bob came rumbling over, driving his swivel chair again.
“How’s it going, Lois Lanes?” he asked, the usual big grin plastered across his face.
Turns out, if you’re a girl reporter, folks will call you Lois Lane. A lot. Well, there were worse things than a Superman reference, I supposed.
I smiled at him. We both said we were doing fine, but then I had a sudden need to tell him something.
“Um, thank you,” I said timidly. I was grateful that he’d cared enough about me, my story, and my attitude that he’d gotten in my face. It shook me up that day, but I was glad it had happened.
His bushy reddish brown eyebrows knit into a caterpillar-ish clump. “Thanks for what?” he said. Before I could answer, he shook his hands in a go away gesture. “Reporters help reporters. Professional courtesy!”
I grinned.
Then in another fit of conscience, I turned to my mentor and blurted:
“Ever since you started mentoring me, I’ve referred to you as McSweater Vest in my head. That was rude. Sorry… uh, Mr., um, McShea.”
Red giggled. “You are funny when you’re contrite.”
I slid her a glance and asked, “Language arts vocabulary word?”
“You know it!” she said.
Now we were all laughing, including Mr. McShea. He said, “Oh, I’m well aware of your nickname for me. You slipped and called me that several times. No worries. I like my sweater vests. Besides, with your white shirts, hair buns, and cardigans, I figured we make a fine pair!”
I looked down. I was wearing skinny dark-wash jeans with a white shirt and a fitted black-and-red cardigan. I looked down at my outfit and then up at his.
Well, for goodness’ sake! We really were dressed alike. Now we all burst out laughing again until one of the editors across the room scowled at us and Mr. McShea said we should get to work.
“Girls, we are officially on deadline,” he said. We were writing two stories—the first was running Saturday morning, the day of the program. It would be the bigger story.
Then we were attending the conference and writing a follow-up. Both of those pieces were running in the Freep’s online edition, along with a commentary piece by me.
Buffalo Bob hung around, too, lending his insight.
Today he wore a T-shirt that read:
“IF THERE IS A BOOK THAT YOU WANT TO READ, BUT IT HASN’T BEEN WRITTEN YET, YOU MUST BE THE ONE TO WRITE IT.”
—TONI MORRISON
Toni Morrison is a famous African American female author. Buffalo Bob had a lot of those kinds of shirts.
“Hey, Mr. Buffalo, why do you wear so many shirts with sayings by black people?”
He drew his neck back and peered at me.
With a bark of laughter, he said, “Because black women are the mothers of modern civilization.” He said it like, Duh?
He went on:
“Scientists are always discovering ancient bones or human remains. The oldest ones come from Africa. There are remains and artifacts showing a very modern structured civilization dating back two hundred thousand years in Africa. Black women were strong and powerful long before Europe or Europeans even existed.”
He grinned.
I grinned.
No matter what the girls at Price said, I was part of that ancestry. They didn’t get to describe the kind of person I was or the person I wanted to be! I wasn’t going to let them make me feel bad about myself or my favorite cookies. I loved my Oreos—with white milk, too!!
“Maybe someone should make you an honorary black woman,” I said.
Then up walked a tall woman, a columnist whose face I recognized from her picture in the paper. She had killer cheekbones and a tidy little Afro, like Toya’s. She walked up behind him and placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Sugar, I dubbed Buffalo Bob an honorary black woman a long time ago. He is down for the struggle and up for the empowerment,” she said.
Buffalo Bob grinned, raised a fist, and said, “Right on!” Then he pointed to the saying on his shirt again.
“That doesn’t just go for writing books. It goes for all kinds of storytelling,” he said. Poking me in the shoulder with his finger, he said, “You be the change! We don’t know where potential news will turn up, but when you see something happening that needs a light shined on it, shine on, little mama, shine on!”
Then in true Buffalo Bob fashion, he did a hand explosion like—poof!—and then drove his swivel chair away, away, away!
Reporter’s Notebook
Thursday, January 25
How to interview hostile subjects:
Not everyone who makes news wants to speak to the media. Still, as reporters, you have an obligation to get the best evidence from the most knowledgeable source. When someone is combative, angry, or confrontational, a good reporter will defuse the situation.
Try letting the subject know that you understand their feelings. Do not push or try to match their agitation. Be in control of your interview, not controlled by the emotions of the subject.
1. Be friendly, polite, and courteous.
2. If someone gets harsh or aggressive, remind them that you understand how tough their situation is but you’re just there to do a job.
3. Tell them you need their help. When you make people part of the solution, it can sometimes redirect them away from the problem.
18
We were on the mats. Feet bare. Stretching. A competitive cheerleader’s life is all about flexibility. Red and I were side by side, pressing to the floor in splits.
“I can’t believe it’s almost time to turn in our stories,” I said. It was one thing to be on deadline for Mrs. G. It was quite another to feel the pressure of writing a real news story for a real newspaper.
“Me neither,” Red said. “But I’m really proud of all the hard work we’ve done. And I’m proud of you, Justice. I know you had some bumps in the road with this story.”
We smiled at each other. I looked away, drew a long sigh, then faced her again.
“I can’t believe how crazy I’ve been,” I said. “Venus was right, you know? I am dumb!”
“Not just you. Look at all the kids at school who watch those videos and think it’s hilarious,” Red said.
“But you never did.”
She shrugged. “I told you, my parents were always very open about stereotypes and discrimination.”
“So are mine!” I said. We sat facing each other. I pressed the soles of my feet together, knees bouncing gently up and down; so did she. I went on:
“What gets me, though, is that as an African American kid, my parents taught me about tolerating people who looked different and expecting that respect in return. But no one really tells you to beware of stereotyping people who look like you.”
Red gave a sly, lopsided grin. She said, “Did y’all know my mama was considered white trailer trash?”
“RED!” I shouted. Coach T. boomeranged me with one of her sharply arched brows. I lowered my voice. “Red, how can you say a thing like that? You can’t say that about someone—especially your own mama.”
She let out a whoop of laughter. “Justice, you should see the look on your face. Look, the way you feel right now, all uncomfortable and sorta icky. Well, that’s how I feel when you and other kids go around yukking it up about folks being ghetto.”
I gulped. I’d never thought about it like that. Then I burst out laughing. Ghetto doesn’t even sound right coming out of her mouth. So weird.
Red said, “My mama did grow up in a trailer park. In a dusty, poor area of Texas where she was called white trash on a regular basis. It wasn’t black kids or Hispanics or anybody else doing the name calling, either. It was other white kids. But she managed to earn a scholarship to a prestigious private school, then she became a dancer and later Miss Texas and second runner-up to Miss America. And then she went to college, married my dad, and ran her own dance school. She did amazing things, especially from where she started.”
I nodded. I thought about Mom’s father dying when she was young, her having to work her way through college before landing her dream job, becoming a wife, a mother. Kids don’t think about that kind of thing a lot, but sometimes amazingness can be found close to home.
A little itch of doubt wormed into my thoughts. Mom getting that promotion was a big deal. But I wasn’t ready to go. Not yet. Maybe not ever!
We were just about finished with our warmup when Lori, Sandra, and a few other girls joined us. It was pretty chill. Most of us were feeling the pressure. Our exhibition was only a few weeks away and we were getting jumpy, no pun intended.
Then Tracy joined us, tossed her perfectly even dark twists, and placed a hand on her hip. She said, “So, Brianna, you’re not going back to the ghetto, right? That place is so—”
But I was on my feet and in her face before she could finish that foolishness.
“Tracy, you and I are African American like a lot of folks on the east side,” I said with such emphasis, she took a step back. But I wasn’t finished.
“I’ll admit, I got caught up in calling people names and thinking it was funny, but those kids over there, they deserve our respect!”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about!” Tracy shot back. “I don’t care what you say!”
“And you don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t even know where the word ghetto comes from. It means—”
“I don’t need you telling me any definitions. I don’t care what you say, I’m nothing like them!”
WHEEERT!
The whistle. Coach T. appeared beside us, whistle between her teeth, blowing hard.
“Girls! What is the problem?” Several voices spoke at once as we all tried to explain.
After several stops and starts, Coach T. was getting the picture. She took a moment, then looked around at us, her gaze going from face to face. Finally, she asked, “How many of you have an opinion about people living over on the east side?”
Several hands went up.
She nodded, then led us toward a huge red mat beside the big wall mirror. Once we were all plopped down on the floor mat—me with steam still coming out of my ears—Coach T. smiled her bright, cheerleader smile.
“Girls, I’m so proud of you. It’s time we had this discussion.” Of all the things I’d been expecting, that wasn’t one of them.
Tracy grumbled, “All I’m saying is just because Brianna went over and met a few kids who seemed nice, that doesn’t mean the east side is a good place. Ghetto is ghetto.” She huffed and sat with her back to the mirror, arms folded, face turned away from mine.
“Guess that makes me ghetto,” Coach T. said.
Say what?
“I grew up right next to where Price Academy is. Only, back then, we didn’t have a charter school. We had a collection of failing schools that made it really hard to get the same kind of education as other kids,” she said.
“But I thought you said you went to college?” Tracy asked suspiciously.
Lori and Sandra looked as if they might pass out.
Coach T. said, “I did go to college. Georgia Tech. I have a dual degree in computer science and graphic design.”
My eyes grew wide. She was a techie?
She pulled into a deep side lean. “Hey, now! You all don’t have to act like just because I’m a cheerleading beast, I can’t get my tech on, too!”
That made us all laugh and it sort of broke the tension. For the next thirty minutes, instead of drills, burpees, routines, and stamina exercises, Coach T. talked to us about her life.
She told us her mother worked as an aide in a nursing home. Her father died when she was still an infant. Her mother remarried and had two other children. Then her stepfather walked out.
“Believe me,” she said, “we did not have a lot when I was growing up. Sometimes if my siblings and I didn’t eat at school, we didn’t eat. Period.”
She paused, letting that sink in. I could feel the way we all sort of gasped when she said it. It was hard to imagine ever not being able to get enough to eat at home. Mom and Dad always kept our cupboards stuffed.
Coach T. said, “It killed me, though, to see how not being able to take better care of us affected my mom. She started working two jobs. I swear to goodness, between fourth grade and my high school graduation I barely saw her. My half-sister babysat us a lot so Mama could work.”
“Did your sister go to college?” Lori asked.
She shook her head. “She couldn’t afford to. She was too busy taking care of us.” Coach T. sighed. “But my brother and I went to college. He just graduated from Central Michigan with an engineering degree. I got my degree in computer science and graphic design. I’m actually helping out with a workshop at an event for inner-city girls on Saturday.”
Well, I could’ve fainted.
Red and I exchanged glances. “You mean the SheCodes workshop?” I asked.
“Yes, you’ve heard of it?”
Red and I looked at each other with huge wide-eyed expressions. In a tumble and jumble of words, together we launched into an explanation of how we were working on a story about the program and we’d interviewed all sorts of people.
“That’s how this whole thing about Price Academy and the east side started,” Red said, almost out of breath from talking so fast. “Justice and I were going there and then a few girls here started acting like we were headed to a war zone, and then…”
Coach T. nodded. Then she looked from Red to me and said, “You do realize that part of the reason the girls have those perceptions about low-income neighborhoods is due to the media.”
Well, that sat me back on my heels. Say what?
“When I was growing up over there, a huge fight broke out at the high school. The police came, and parents tried to get involved. Before you knew it, the police were lobbing tear gas into the crowds and using those protective shields. On the news that night, a reporter actually called my neighborhood a war zone. My home,” she said.
She told us that no matter how many people in her neighborhood volunteered, helped paint over graffiti, clean up parks, older women organizing to help working mothers who couldn’t afford day care for little ones—none of that was mentioned in the media. All anyone talked about for months was how it had gotten so bad on the east side that it was “a war zone.”
I felt chilled thinking about it.
After a moment, I ventured, “But Coach, you can’t fault the media for reporting what happened. That was what happened, right?”
“Sure, but I can fault the media for how it was reported. Girls, look, one of the things I hope Coach Kristy and I can teach you if we don’t teach anything else is to work hard, show up, be present, and take control. But we also want you to ask questions, learn from each
other, and learn from everyone around you. Respect your competitors and respect yourselves.” She sighed. Then continued:
“As young women, you all will face stereotyping based on your gender, your looks, your weight, how you carry yourselves. People will line up to tell you what you can and cannot do.”
She turned to me and Red and said, “And as journalists, you’ll face biases on what to cover and how. All I’m saying is, part of everyone’s responsibilities to their communities is to reject the narrative until you gather your own facts. Somebody starts talking smack about someone or something you aren’t educated on, reject it until you get your own proof.”
After the pep talk, Sandra and Lori apologized, saying they hadn’t meant to hurt anyone’s feelings. They admitted that the opinions they held were based on what they’d heard and been told, not what they’d learned for themselves.
Tracy, on the other hand, flounced off, still mad about whatever. Guess she needed to figure some things out for herself first. What could I say? I’d been there.
Two hours later, Red leaned into her splits, touching her chest to her front thigh. Ballerinas were tough. I felt like my body was melting from the inside out. Still, in my efforts to please Coach T. with a perfect scorpion pose for the exhibition, I strained my muscles, reached behind me, and grabbed my toes, tugging my foot closer and closer to the back of my head. Ow! Feel the burn!
Red asked, “Are you nervous? About writing the story? About the event on Saturday?”
After a few seconds of holding my foot, the back of my thigh shook. The muscle felt like it was on fire. I breathed in, and out.
“What I am nervous about,” I whispered, not wanting anyone else in the WORLD to hear what I was saying, “is that Neptune wants to come to our exhibition.”
Red, who was now out of her splits and sitting on her butt with her heels pressed together and her legs flat to the floor, glanced up.
With a wide grin on her face she declared, “Well, Justice, that’s wonderful. Oooo! I think someone is starting to really like-like someone else.”
President of the Whole Sixth Grade_Girl Code Page 12