30-Some Years and Counting

I remember you.

I don't remember your names or your faces or what assorted small Iowa towns you came from.

I was probably the only black person you'd ever met in person. You probably never knew a black person. I definitely didn't act or talk like the black people you'd probably seen on tv. The fact I didn't talk or act "Black" was something I heard a lot, especially in my teen years. You probably had no clue how to react to me.

I heard you that night in our cabin at the retreat center. It was late, lights were out, you weren't ready to sleep and you started telling jokes to pass time. Maybe you thought I was asleep.

I wasn't.

I heard every joke. Every word. Every use of the word "nigger".

I remember how easily and gleefully it came from your mouths, how easily nigger joke after nigger joke came from your seemingly endless stores of comedy black gold. I heard the reason we have sex on our minds all the time is because of the pubic hair growing from our heads. I heard about the truck with the shipment of bowling balls that picked up a hitchhiker and how the state trooper was dismayed when he discovered one of the nigger eggs had hatched. I don't remember all the other jokes, but I remember I dared not move, I dared not speak, I dared not give away that I was awake, and I definitely dared not fall asleep until after you did.

I may have told one counselor the next day, or I may have told one of my friends. I don't remember. If I did, I don't remember if anything happened as a result. No one left, but my trust definitely did. In a retreat center in small town Iowa, surrounded by small town Iowa Catholics I felt even more isolated than before. Washed over by messages of love and unity and service and acceptance, I remained on even higher alert.

I have never been called "nigger" to my face, just when nobody thought I was listening.