if only my skin were changed

I wasn’t going to do International Blog Against Racism Week, because I can never think of anything useful to say. But then I read Will Shetterly’s post on how his life might not substantially have been altered if he’d been born black. Whether or not you believe he’s right (and most of his comenters apparently don’t) the thing that strikes me hardest is that it wouldn’t have been true for me. If I’d been born black, holding as much else constant as is consistent with that assumption, my life would have been enormously different. For one thing, I wouldn’t have been Jewish (at least, it’s highly unlikely) which would have changed my outlook in ways it’s hard to envision. If I’d been raised as a Black Muslim, there might have been a lot of similarities in the aspect of being in a religious minority but Christianity seems more likely. In that case I wouldn’t have been a religious minority and the holidays celebrated on TV and in the stores would have been my holidays, but I suspect the celebrations I saw from the wider culture would still have been different from my celebrations. It would have been weird seeing only white-skinned people around the Christmas tree, for example. The food served might not be a bit different from what I saw in Norman Rockwell posters. Kwanzaa would have been just my mom’s kind of thing, and not seeing a Kwanzaa candelabra in public displays would have been as off-putting as not seeing a chanukiya (technically, the thing with eight branches isn’t a menorah) there.

My parents could possibly have had the same jobs. I think it’s more likely that dad would have been a tire store worker rather than a manager, though, or would have been a manager in a poorer neighborhood, so money would have been tighter. We’d have lived in a similar rowhouse but in a different neighborhood. We’re assuming my parents would have been the same sort of people (though in reality, that’s not likely; I suspect if they’d grown up in a culture that placed less emphasis on education they’d have been less likely to set the example or reading for enjoyent and less likely to read to read to us, which would have changed everything). But assuming they were, we would have read a lot at home but probably would not have had access to the excellent preschools my brother and I went to (Jewish in my case, a cooperative one in a church but without religious focus in his case) so while we might have been as well prepared for school academically, we’d have been less ready socially. I probably wouldn’t have been offered the chance to skip kindergarten, so would have been a year older throughout school, and probably even more bored) in early grade school.

They started bussing black kids to my school in the mid-1970s; one or two in my class in 2nd grade, maybe 6 or 8 in 3rd grade. So from 2nd or 3rd grade on I could have gone to the same school – but I’d have spent a long time on a bus each way, instead of walking half a block to grade school. I think the bussed kids came in at the same time in the morning but were dismissed 15 or 30 minutes earlier in the afternoon. I don’t know how long the rides were – it probably depended on traffic – but with a rough idea of Philadelphia neighborhoods I’d guess 30-60 minutes each way. So I’d have lost 1-2 hours of free time a day, having to get up earlier (and thus go to bed earlier) and lose time in the afternoon when I was actually playing or doing homework. Most people don’t notice the loss of time as much as the the loss of money, but I think it can be worse. I’m pretty sure my parents would have found it worth while to get me to a better school, but it definitely would have been a loss. In high school I would have ridden a similar amount of time, on a city bus rather than school bus, instead of walking a mile each way. I’d still have had to walk to the bus stop and wait there, which depending on my neighborhood might have been hazardous. Also, by high school IBS was bothering me, and spending long periods on a bus every day would sometimes have been very unpleasant. Then again, if I were black I probably wouldn’t have had IBS – it’s quite common among Ashkenazic Jews, less so among American blacks. Of course there are other things I might have had instead – I hear sickle-cell anemia is very painful.

I had terrible study habits, mostly because I didn’t need better ones and also, I think, because my parents really didn’t know how to help me develop better ones, possibly didn’t realize because my grades were OK. Because of spending all that time on the bus and probably not having as excellent a library nearby, I’d either have had to develop better ones (and thus done much better in college) or I wouldn’t (and thus not gotten into the same college). I’m betting on not, but it’s hard to tell. I’d have been enmeshed in a culture with less value on education (which was always an important thing for Jews) but maybe just because of that my parents or someone would have pushed me a lot harder in order to change that.

On second thought, I probably would have gone to a different high school. Mine was an aerospace magnet school, but it was also my neighborhood school. The aerospace magnet was atractive largely because it offered better science classes. More likely I’d have gone to Masterman, another magnet school with an academic focus that would have been closer to me. maybe someone there would have pushed me harder. Maybe they wouldn’t and I’d have had worse grades. Either way, I think either my college or my experience there would have been very different, which would have totally changed the direction of my life after that. There are so many possible paths from there that I can’t take the what-if? any farther. I can imagine good outcomes and bad ones; either way I think my educational success would not have been just naturally assumed as it was and so any success would have demanded a lot more struggle from me. I can’t tell what path I’d have taken. I do think I probably wouldn’t have been in position to meet and marry Rudder, and so I wouldn’t be where I am right now. I know my life would have been harder. How would I have dealt with that? I can’t know.