The Black Bus

     

     It was an average Fall day in Albuquerque, NM in September of 1993. Everyone at the bus stop was carrying on with the usual morning routine of gossip, banter, or rushing to complete their homework at the last minute. Over the summer there had been an influx of new families in the neighborhood, which led to over crowding on the school bus; this was also the first day that an additional bus would come to the stop. When the busses finally arrived our normal driver began hand selecting students to ride the alternate bus. It became clear that he was singling out the black children. Some how he managed to avoid pointing to me, so without hesitation my best friend Chrissy and I began to board the bus. To my surprise the driver barked out to me “You need to get on the other bus, this bus is full,” he then told my blonde haired, blue-eyed friend who was behind me that is was okay for her to board the bus. A cocktail of emotion swept over me. It was in this moment that I came to understand the main difference between my peers and I . . . I was born with brown skin. This realization changed my life over night. 

The veil of innocence had been lifted from my eyes. I understood that being the smartest girl in class wasn’t enough, especially if a white counterpart was just a point or two below me. I would never experience the “White Privilege.” After this experience, there was not one minute that I wished I could look more like my friend Chrissy, I never rejected my DNA or my heritage. In fact, I became obsessed with it. I began reading and and every book I could get my hands on pertaining to the accomplishments of African Americans and the institution of slavery. With each book I read a deeper burning in my heart slowly began to fester. Eventually after several years I found myself associating less and less with my white classmates and more with other minority children. It was easier for me to relate to a student who recently immigrated from another country because they too also understood what it meant not to be white in America. The few white friends that I had were never able to grasp the concept that despite the fact that slavery was over and that the Civil Rights Act was recently passed in 1963, racism and discrimination still existed. They would never understand how I felt when they were picked over me to do something simply because they were white. They would never know how it felt when a teacher would tell me I couldn’t do something in one breath, and in the next tell a white student that they could. 

Not being allowed to ride the bus that day impacted me in a number of ways. One thing it did not do was break my spirit. I became more determined than ever. I was determined to carry and represent myself in such a way that the color of my skin could possible have no determination on the avenues I would be able to pursue in life. No one would be able to tell me that I was not able or could not do something with my race as an issue, because my work would far outshine the rest. It was an admirable goal, somehow it back fired. People became amazed at the quality of my work and the character my Parents instilled in me, because I was black. A friend in high school once told me that I was the first black person to eat dinner or stay the night at her house. She explained that her father was racist, but that he had taken a liking to me. It was like I was some strange phenomenon.  To this day, I still wrestle with these issues and I  long for the day that I “will one day live in a nation where (I) will not be judged by the color of (my) skin but by the content of (my) character.” (Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.)