CHAPTER 8
LATER THAT NIGHT, I need to pee. The bathroom is down the hall from my parents’ bedroom.
I tiptoe by their room real quiet so I don’t wake them. But they’re up.
“He’s too young.” Mom’s voice is snappy. “I don’t want Stephen thinking about these things.”
They’re talking about me? I lean close to their door.
“Can’t I just sleep?” Dad sighs hard. “Do we really need to discuss this now?”
“Yes.”
“Fine.” It sounds like he sits up. “You don’t want him thinking about these things. But it’s happening to him. That’s why I told him what I said.”
“But you’re pushing him to think like an adult. He’s an innocent kid.”
“Me? I’m not the one bursting his bubble. The world’s doing that. You don’t want him thinking like an adult? Then go tell the world to stop treating him like an adult felon. You don’t want me to be like my father and bottle it all in, do you? I told myself if I had a son, I’d try to really talk with him—not just give him bits and pieces of the truth. Don’t you want me to have a more open relationship with Stephen?”
“I do, but also, I want to protect him feeling free—his imagination, his mind.”
It goes quiet in their room for a few seconds. Then Dad says, “I want to protect him too. I want to protect his body. From prejudiced people hurting him. He needs to know how to steer through this world as a Black boy.”
“He’s mixed.”
“Mixed? You think a racist person sees he’s mixed? And even if they did, then what? They’ll give him a pass?”
He changes his voice to serious-professional. “Oh, excuse me. I didn’t know you were mixed. You’re now free to go. And remember, you can now get away with what white kids get away with. SWOOSH! There you go. Your White Skin Privilege powers have been turned on. Little boy, your force field against racism is now up.”
“What’s with the jokes?” Mom’s voice is upset.
“I tried to be serious and explain it. You didn’t get how serious it is. So maybe you’d understand it better as a joke.”
“Listen . . .” My mom must be standing, because the bed creaks and her feet shuffle.
I’m ready to run fast if she comes toward the door.
My mom keeps talking. “I know that you and Stephen are Black males. I know that you go through things that I don’t. I get it. Let’s just go to bed and talk more tomorrow.”
I lie back in bed and think about what I just heard my parents say.
I wonder why it’s such a big deal for my mom to call me “mixed” when my dad’s right: It’s obvious I get treated foul because I’m Black.
I think back to a third-grade parent-teacher conference with my white teacher, Ms. North.
I heard Ms. North give my mom the biggest, warmest hello when my mom walked in before us. “Oh, hi! Whose parent are you?”
Then Ms. North’s jaw dropped for a second when my dad and I walked in. She acted so awkward the whole meeting and mostly spoke to my mom.
Leaving the conference, in the hall outside my class, I joked to my dad, “Ms. North looked SOS when Mom walked in.”
Dad put his arm around me and rapped, all jokey. “That’s because you’re Black, you’re Black. You’re Blackity-Black-Black and you’re Black. Ms. North expected your Black mom to walk in. She didn’t think your mom and I’d be so . . . opposite.”
Friends have said that before: Your mom and dad are opposite.
If you look at their skin colors, then, yeah, they’re opposite. And sometimes Dad is louder and more outgoing than Mom.
But they’re more similar than opposite.
My mom helps manage a public library. Dad’s a teacher. And when they get into talking about books, they finish each other’s sentences like they’re one person. They love the same singers, shows, and restaurants. Love and hate the same politicians. You name it: They’re similar.
Back then, after that parent-teacher conference, we drove home and I asked Dad, “You really think Ms. North thought you and Mom were opposites?”
My mom tried to shut it down. “Honey, this isn’t appropriate to talk badly about Stephen’s teacher.”
“Wait. What?” Dad said. “How am I the inappropriate one? She’s the one that couldn’t get over Stephen having a white mom. And a Black da—”
Mom interrupted. “Well, now she’ll know he’s mixed.”
“Right, but what about his future teachers who haven’t met us? Will they see Stephen as a white boy or a Black boy? And what if a cop sees Stephen? Will the cop see a white boy or a Black boy?”
She shook her head. “This again.”
“Yes, this again. Because this racism thing isn’t going away. So it’s appropriate for Stephen to know some people will treat him different in this world just because he looks different. He needs to be woke so he avoids getting hurt or let down.”
My mom nodded, agreeing with him. Then she giggled. “Woke? That doesn’t even sound like you.”
Dad giggled back. “Yeah. I thought the same thing as I said it.”
I was thinking the same too, but “woke” is cool.
Right then, they both started smiling at each other. “Woke,” they sighed, and giggled at the same time.
See? They’re not opposites, really.
Now I think to fifteen minutes ago, when my mom said, I want to protect him. Then Dad said the same. I want to protect him too. They both want to protect me, so—boom—they’re also the same that way.
But protect me? Do I need it?
I stare above at the solar system Dad hung from strings on the ceiling. He bought it in Manhattan’s American Museum of Natural History. After he hung it up, he winked at me and said, “The world is yours.”
Right now, I don’t feel that way.