Spoiler! :
Spoiler! :
Applause as the little girl takes the podium. A little black girl, of course. They want to show racial diversity on a day like today. The other fifth graders are lined up behind her, waiting for their turns. We can see Aidan in the back, hands in his pockets, staring at the floor. He is shuffling his feet a little. In fact, the whole line seems to be moving as nervous kids stare at the floor and shuffle, like Aidan, or look out into the audience scanning for their parents, like the girl in front of him. I don’t know the girl at the podium; she is wearing a blue dress with shiny black patent leather shoes and her hair is in braids with pink plastic beads.
The teacher hurries forward and grabs the black bubble of the flexible microphone—feedback shrieks in our ears—and bends it down as far as it will go. The little girl steps up on something behind the podium and between the added height and the bendable microphone, she can reach it.
“I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
“Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation.”
This girl has a lisp. She rasps on ‘score’ and has to try ‘symbolic shadow’ a few times before she gets it right. Why would anybody give a little girl with a lisp such a passage? When she steps down from the podium, two parents and enough children to fill half a row of uncomfortable folding seats cheer and applaud wildly, making the next little boy very uncomfortable as he fidgets, waiting for them to stop.
“This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.”
He pronounces each syllable carefully, so that words like ‘momentous’ sound more like ‘mow-men-chew-us.’ Two white people in business suits sitting close to the front give him a standing ovation when he finishes.
It’s a long program. I stop paying attention to what the dolled-up boys and girls are staying. But I do notice something. When a white boy or girl finishes their segment, the applause comes from the front of the auditorium. When the child is black, their family is seated in the back. I look around. Sure enough, everyone here is like us: chocolate colored.
No, that’s not true. There is a girl sitting right in front of me, maybe a little older than I am. She has her hair in ponytail—true dishwater blond, not dyed like old fat black ladies dye their hair. She is sitting very straight. On her left is a black grandmother, and on her right a man who looks mentally retarded tugging on the sleeve of the woman on his other side.
The girl looks very nervous, especially about the man on her right. At least, that’s what it seems like from watching the back of her head. She stays perfectly still, like she doesn’t want to alert him to her presence there.
“It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned.”
It bothers me that she is so nervous back here, as if she is sitting in a nest of rats. Maybe she thinks that we’re dirty, that our dark skin is actually filth building up there. As I have this thought, my skin prickles and tingles as though it actually isn’t as clean as hers.
“This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning.”
Maybe she is afraid that the man next to her will tug her sleeve instead of that other woman’s. Maybe she is wishing that he will keep bothering that other woman because this girl is worth more than some Negro lady.
“Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.”
The man has turned around and is looking at the girl intently. She keeps her head stock still, staring at the podium where one of Aidan’s friends, Dennis, is busy reciting his portion of the passage. He fumbles with the word ‘inextricably.’
“Inestr—estrix—inestrix—inextrixibly bound…”
Suddenly, like a pouncing cat, he grabs her chin and tries to bring it around to his. She jerks away with a small cry and rises from her seat, wobbling towards the front of the auditorium in high heels. Everyone within earshot watches her silently as she makes her way quickly out of the auditorium doors. There is already a cell phone in her hand.
“As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.”
It doesn’t take long. There must have been a policeman nearby, because she is back within minutes.
The girl points and the policeman nods. He is a big white man with a moustache and a small goatee, both black.
The big man makes his way back. Most of the people in the front row haven’t noticed that there is anything going on because the door he came in from is halfway down the auditorium. But all of the black folks sit up a little straighter, craning their necks to see what is going on but trying not to look too interested. The poor little boy on stage has noticed, too, and his eyes nervously follow the officer.
“Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality.”
The retarded man is lolling in his chair. He doesn’t seem to see the policeman, or care that he is there. But when the large officer grabs his wrist to snap the shiny metal handcuffs on, he pushes away. The officer comes back at him, and he shoves him. The third time, the police draws out his black club and holds it threateningly. I look away, but I hear the crack.
“You have been the veterans of creative suffering.”
The police officer drags the half-conscious, handcuffed man out of the auditorium. The little boy on stage finishes, and Aidan’s crush Mandy takes the podium.
I need to get to a bathroom. I can’t sit here like this for another moment. I stumble out into the aisle, choking back the panic rising in my throat. In the end, I don’t make it to a bathroom and instead vomit into an already disgusting trash can. The yellow bile mingled with the colorful gum in the black trash bag makes me want to puke again, but my stomach is empty. Instead, I find a water fountain and rinse out my mouth. I can still hear the magnified voices from out here.
“I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.”
Suddenly, a different voice drawls, “Would you look at that.” A middle aged white man with a balding patch on the top of his shiny crown has rounded the corner. I look around to see who he is talking to, but I am the only one in the hallway. Everybody else is inside the auditorium. I stare at him, waiting for him to pass. But he stops right in front of me.
“I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.’”
He reaches for me. “Don’t scream,” he says.
“And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!’
While the audience applauds, I vomit the contents of my stomach into the trashcan once more.
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