I think you’re wrong but                                                                   

Charlie Brown

Reading Time: 4.5 minutes

“I think you’re wrong but” originally appeared in Issue 14 of Tahoma Literary Review. The title of this flash essay was what originally grabbed my attention, but then I read the first sentence and that captured me, too. But what I love most about this brief, thoughtful piece is its undeniable grace. I not only want to follow this narrator’s train of thought, but I want to know what influences shaped this narrator’s compassion. I kind of want to ask his mother.

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Ann Beman
Nonfiction editor

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If you asked my mother, she’d tell you I had a problem with authority figures when I was young. But I promise this wasn’t that. I stood, trying my best to hide the fact that my fist was clenched, while my boss was giving me the pleasure of his opinion on racism and its existence. I tried my best to ignore those looks of “you really gonna take this from this man” that everyone who passed seemed to be giving me, and I listened. I kept thinking to myself, Maybe this is my chance to educate him on how things really are. He just hasn’t gotten the information, hasn’t heard stories from someone who was on the inside of this. So I told him about my personal experiences, and the way I’ve felt when I’ve been forced to feel like nothing more than my skin. And he sat there, with this smug smirk below his gray mustache. And this look on his face like “I’ma learn you today, boy.” And proceeded to tell me about how hard his upbringing was. And that struggle has never had anything to do with color. And the people in the stories that I told him, they weren’t at all racist, simply ignorant. And maybe they had bad hearts. But it’s not about skin. It’s never about skin. That’s all in the past now. How long ago was slavery?

I was in the fourth grade when I first came to know love. Looking back, I’m not sure what it was about her. In grade school I’d had plenty of (what we all thought were) girlfriends (at the time). Those girls with whom I spent no time at all, but I thought were cute. We’d stare across a field or playground, making eyes at each other, while she was with her friends and I was with mine. And those friends would tease and berate us as we crossed that field, that seemed so much longer now, just to give each other a quick kiss before running back to our friends, without even a glance back. But this was different.

She was new, planting herself in the midst of our chaotic class, midyear. Our teacher sat her next to me. Why me? I’m not sure. (Probably because it was the only desk open.) But in the fourth grade, I called it destiny. She talked fast, telling me she’d just moved over from across the Bay Bridge. Being as small as I was, that was a whole world away at the time. She was new and alien. A cool wind in the midst of the muggy atmosphere that was our fourth-grade class.

We talked in a way kids usually didn’t. She told me things about herself. How she’d felt about moving. How she felt about her parents, who had recently split. How much she loved sunsets, or those little flowers that made your chin glow yellow, and were undeniable proof that you liked butter when it did. I told her things about myself, too—things I hadn’t known until I said them out loud. She made me brand new.

One morning she came to school and I could tell something was different. Her eyes looked tired. Her gaze wouldn’t find mine. She was more interested in the shine of the laminated wooden desk in front of her. This pain wracked my chest and the feeling of a ball formed in my throat, which from then on I came to associate with love. I tried to grab hold of her hand. She pulled it away from me as if I were a hot stove she’d been told not to touch.

“What’s wrong?”

She quietly shook her head back and forth.

“What’s wrong?”

“Leave me alone.”

She still wasn’t meeting my eyes. We went on like this for most of the day. Tears welling up and being brushed away on both of our faces.

“Just tell me what I did wrong.”

“My mom says we can’t be friends.”

It hit me at ninety miles per hour. It slammed into me like that kid who was just too eager to catch you while playing tag.

“She says we can’t be friends,” she repeated, “’cause I’m white and you’re black. And that’s not okay.”

In retrospect, I wonder what made her mother feel that way. Was it a family thing, passed on from her own parents? A generational curse that she’d simply inherited? Had some African Americans she’d known in her past put a bad taste in her mouth about black folk? Or maybe it was for no apparent reason at all? Would it have changed if she had known me?

After getting off of work one afternoon and walking home, one of my best friends told me she was at the Noodles & Company that was on my way. She asked me to stop by. I walked in, minus my work shirt, which the heat had insisted I take off, wearing a wife beater and khaki pants. My hair being what many would’ve called nappy, thanks to the heat and humidity. I walked up to the table where three white women were seated, one of them being my best friend, the other two being her sorority sisters whom I knew very well. We didn’t talk too long. I stood and joked with them as they smiled up at me. We made plans to get together for something my fraternity was hosting on campus later. We said our goodbyes and I walked out the door.

As I left, one of the waiters came up to their table and asked if I had bothered them, and if he needed to call somebody. They told me later they were all completely dumbfounded. Our interactions that day were “so normal,” they said. They didn’t understand what would’ve made him make that assumption. The one I was closest with told me later she’d never seen racism before that day (and I didn’t have the heart to tell her this wasn’t my first experience). But the guy probably didn’t think he was being racist. He saw a black man, in a wife beater with a nappy ‘fro, approach three white women at what seemed like random to him. And maybe he didn’t see the way the three of us were getting along. Maybe he didn’t notice their smiles or how relaxed we all were with each other. He saw what the rest of the world and the news had shown him was trouble. He probably was just trying to help. (He probably thought he was doing the right thing.)

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Reprinted with permission of the author

Brown had this to say about the piece:

During a talk with my former boss about racism being alive or dead in our time, I realized that he, like others I’ve met, wasn’t aware that he was racially prejudiced. While talking to him I began to wonder about him and the others and their thinking that they’re in the right with their prejudiced speech and actions, not aware of their prejudice at all. How sad is that? And where does it come from? When you’re prejudiced and harmful without even knowing you are. I’m not sure whether to scold or pity them.

Charles M. Brown is currently an undergraduate student at Salisbury University. He enjoys film photography and large puzzles.