Yup
I thought to write something along these lines, but decided it would be too easy. The question here is not “What is our country coming to?” Rather, the answer is what it’s always been.
Crystal Fields was beautiful. She had long baby fine blonde hair, blue eyes and, what must have been, a 32b chest. She cursed, had a boyfriend at least six years her senior, and smoked cigarettes. We were in elementary school together. She once brought the boyfriend to one of the school’s skating parties, and while I considered him very ugly in the face, I was nonetheless impressed that a ten year old could spear a boy with a mustache. Or any boyfriend for that matter. Alas, I was a late bloomer.
Crystal and I became fast friends in the innocent way children often do. We gossiped about boys, told one another secrets, and compared breast development. Once she even took me into her bathroom stall to show me how her medication turned her piss blue.
We met through the ingenious invention of bussing at Whitney Young Elementary School in a mid-sized Southern city. I was lucky, whereas Crystal had to travel forty five minutes by bus to get to school, I could walk there in five from my grandmother’s house. Thus, while she visited my neighborhood every weekday, I had only been to hers once. It was an unfortunate situation, really: the home of a black family had been firebombed (or maybe just threatened to be—nineteen years later my memory fails me) and I was there with my grandmother and a handful of other activists and citizens to protest, peacefully.
None of this had any effect on my burgeoning relationship with Crystal Fields. It was not possible that she too was a racist. How could she have been when she and I were best friends? In fact she was the only white girl to attend my ninth birthday party. …
Crystal would often boast that her mother had the world’s biggest titties and that her father nicknamed her “Milk Jugs” on account of them. This was why, Crystal explained to me, her mother called her at my home in hysterics on the morning after the sleep over. Her mother did not feel safe driving deeper into the black side of town, instead my parents would have to bring her to our school’s parking lot, where her mother waited. Apparently, while at a nearby gas station, some black men tried to rape her. “It is because of my mom’s big titties,” she told me.
I don’t believe anyone tried to rape Crystal’s mom. At a gas pump. At 10am. On a Saturday, but whatever. …
.
By fifth grade our friendship had waned. We hadn’t spoken over the summer, and, of course, there would be no visits to the other’s home. I wouldn’t be so quick to blame the rape. Instead I shall only acknowledge the tenuousness of friendships, regardless the age.
What does bring Crystal Fields to us today, however, is her reading of a map of Africa. She performed it as only a true Cracker could. A “g” was added to both Niger and Nigeria. Nigeria became (say it with me) NIGGER-RHEA. If ever there is a venereal disease created for us and by us (FUBU), I shall propose this very appellation. In the meantime, I will simply extend a thank you to that little girl who knew no better. Nearly two decades later I still hear it in my head and laugh aloud, no matter where I happen to be. Furthermore, the story makes a perfect rebuke to those who believe my city is not really The South based on its precarious geographical positioning.
Thank you Crystal, you were, and I imagine, still are as pure as the fresh fallen snow. And as white too. I vindicate you.
(If anything, the real Cracker at hand would be Mrs. Baine, the geriatric public school teacher who did not bother to correct her. And now that I think of it, isn’t it a little funny that Mrs. Baine once brought in a black and white print out of Mel Gibson and proceeded to use several tax payer dollars to explain the twinkle in his blue eyes?)
Nigger, Niggeria. Niger, Nigeria. Tomato, to-mah-to. As my favorite fictional Cracker would say, “Fiddly dee.”
