Colorblind

By C. Monique Langston

It was a warm Thursday and the perfect day to play. It was nearly noon and I had just watched my great grandmother slice potatoes on her cutting board, which was placed on the kitchen table. Her hands, though not as strong as she once remembered them to be, were carefully cupping a potato as she peeled the skin with her paring knife. She sat in her chair concentrating on her effort to not prick her fingers or peel too much starch with the skin. I sat in the chair next to her watching her and admiring her gentleness and the love she put into preparing a meal for my great grandfather.

“Are you going to the playground today?” She asked. “If you are, pack a lunch for you and your brother.”

I opened the refrigerator door to find something good to eat when my great grandfather, ACE, walked into the living room to find me “wasting electricity and spoiling food” as he would say.

“Close the refrigerator door.” He insisted. “Figure out what you are going to eat before you go in there.”

“Okay.” I replied and obeyed, for ACE was known for having small patience for disobedience. “Can I make a bologna sandwich?”

“Go ahead.” He answered after he reached for a Pepsi can on the top, right-hand side of the refrigerator shelf. “You can have some grapes, too.”

“Thanks!” I exclaimed, because certain things were a treat at my great grandparents’ house. They expected certain things to travel with us such as food, clothing, and good behavior, but every once in a while he’d offer us a grape as he plucked them off the vine to store in a container. Other times, he’d hand us a strawberry if we just so happened to walk by him (not by accident, of course) while he was slicing a few on the kitchen counter.

I quickly prepared our lunch, shoved our food into one brown paper bag, and ran to the television just in time to watch my favorite show.

“You guys should hurry to the playground before the program closes. It’s closing soon isn’t it?” My grandmother asked.

“Lee, are you ready to go?” I called out to my brother. He was always running around somewhere doing something. “Go get your bike and I’ll grab your lunch.”

Before we knew it, we had raced our way to the playground on our bikes, spun on the merry-go-round a billion times, ate our lunch, and slid down the huge slide in the corner of the playground until we looked up and everyone was packing up their things and heading out.

The playground was about half a mile up the hill from my grandparents’ house, so we found our friends near the grounds and dispersed knowing that we would find each other again soon. I had a close friend named Elaine who would invite me to her house to play with her toys in her play room. She would invite me to dive into her pool and bounce on her trampoline. Her mother was so kind to me and always welcomed me back. Just the other day, Elaine and I had been walking up and down the road near our houses talking about failed plans that we made and how we would never make plans again, afraid that it would ruin our day or violate our expectations. We said that on the next day, we would get together and play it by ear.

“Hey, Elaine, what are you doing today?”

“I’m not sure. I think I have to go somewhere.” She answered kind of smugly.

“Well, do you want to meet up later? I’ll probably go hang with Darrell and Isaiah for a while until you get back.”

“Um, no, I don’t think so.” That arrogant expression etched in her face again, but this time I also noticed perplexity. “Tina said that I shouldn’t hang out with Black people anymore.”

Tina was another girl who lived in my neighborhood, and, come to think of it, we never played together. If we did, it may have been once and I definitely wasn’t allowed to her house. I never thought it strange before until that moment.

“What? What do you mean?”

I did not understand what she meant and I don’t think she understood either. My mind suddenly jumped to the O.J. Simpson trial, which was a huge deal about a year ago. I recalled that members of my family believed that he wouldn't be acquitted because he was a Black man.

“I’m sorry, I have to go.” Elaine, the first person I had ever called my best friend, a white girl with pretty blonde hair and a fun spirited personality like myself, a member of my community that I had grown to love and enjoy, turned her back and walked away from me.

Shortly after I lost my best friend, I called for my brother and we sped home. I didn’t cry, nor did I get angry. I questioned myself. I replayed the scene over and over again. I thought about the times I played in her house. I remembered the moments we laughed exhaustingly at something that probably didn’t deserve so much attention. I remembered my friend and wondered, ‘who would I play with now?’ Surely not any of my white neighbors, and I was the only Black girl my age in the community. Suddenly I had realized that I was different and I wondered why I never noticed before.

One day, not long after I discovered by Blackness and what it had meant to my friend, her disease spread in my mind to the rest of the community and I became suspicious of them all. I was wondering who was looking at my Blackness when I walked up and down the street and what did my Blackness mean to them. I questioned how the other Black boys in my community had overcome this plague, if they did at all. I found myself lying on my great grandmother’s lap soaking her royal blue flower dress with tears asking her, “What makes me different?”

“When I was in High School, a White girl and I were best friends.” My grandmother began. “We would study together and eat lunch together, but on the day of graduation when I approached her to say goodbye, she had acted like she didn’t even know me.”

I looked at my grandmother in awe. Partially, I was sad because I imagined the emotions that my grandmother had encountered, but on the other hand I was confused about why her friend had turned her back on her. “Why did she do that grandma?” I questioned earnestly.

“Well, baby. That’s just the way it is.”