They Were Sad That Day

Today I took the two little ones to our favorite library, the Crescent Hill Branch. This has long been one of our most frequented haunts. with a visit at least once a week. Q likes to pick out three or four kid books and 3 or 4 DVDs or videos, and O likes to get on the computer and play games or search for comic book heroes, and he usually rounds out the visit by paging through a half-dozen comic books . . . or Graphic Novels, as we say. The librarians know the kids and call them by name, and it's usually a very pleasant and positive experience. Not today. It was pretty crowded, which never helps, but when we went downstairs we passed by a group of black teenagers, and as we went by O did his usual hand stims at the floor. As soon as we were past I heard loud laughter and turned around to see that one of the boys was immitating O, much to the delight of his friends. I took Q and O back to the comic book section and got them settled, then walked up to the kid and said something along the lines of, "You know, the reason he acts that way is he was born with a different kind of brain. That doesn't mean you have to make fun of him, though." The kid denied making fun of O, of course, and then got brave and told me I didn't have to get smart with him. Immediately I could see that he had fallen into the role of the young black kid being harassed by the bigoted old white guy, and I wasn't about to play that game, but it kind of drained the anger right out of me. I just felt sad for all parties involved, including the black kid. I thought about asking him how it felt to be a living stereotype, but I didn't. I satisfied myself with the fact that I had called him out for his obnoxious behavior. He probably won't learn anything from it, but it had to be done. How much it had to be done became obvious when this group of kids began to make all kinds of noise (not at me--I was quickly forgotten) and run around the room, and one even began to play some rap music at a pretty high volume. One librarian cautiously asked the kid to "turn the music down," but that was it. It was obvious that the librarians were afraid of these kids . . . either physically afraid of them (which is pretty racist, actually), or afraid that they would fall into the "I'm a racist" game. I told the head librarian what was going on, but I didn't get the impression that anything would be done about it.

Fortunately, neither Q nor O was congnizant of the affair. But it just left me wondering why people think they have to be assholes on such a regular basis. Part of me wants to slam them up against the wall and make them truly sorry for their mean spiritedness. Part of me wants to clear out and not face it at all. I'm going to try to push for the third path--tell them they're acting like jerks, but refuse to play into the game.