Fences
December 7, 2009 at 6:00 am | Posted in Essays | Leave a commentTags: essay, racism, submitted
It serves as a good symbol for racism in one of what I think is the most racist states in the nation. The last southern state, once slaves crossed over the border into Ohio, they were free. There is still segregation here. It is a socio-economic segregation. The African-Americans live in the city and so go to the city schools. The caucasian kids live on the farms, and go to the county schools.
I lived on a street in a tiny town where most of the African-Americans lived. We were almost the only white folks living on that street. As a result, my first best friend was an African-American girl. We played together in the way that children have of ignoring everything but their own pleasure. Two years older than me, she went off to middle school without me. By the time I reached high school, a school where the mascot was a rebel who held an actual Confederate flag, we were in the same grade. Maybe it was peer pressure, or maybe it was because we had nothing in common once we stopped playing with dolls, but eventually, our friendship crumbled like that rock fence.
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