My Name is Michael

Growing up I lived in three distinct worlds: school, church, and the neighborhood. There was no crossover between them. I had separate friends in each location and a different social standing and reputation in each.

During my years of Jr. High – grades 7 through 9 – this was before middle school, I had three school friends, Pat a red-headed Irish kid, Steve who I don’t really remember too well, and Hammie. Hammie was the brightest of the group or at least he had the best grades. He and I had a similar sense of humor and I became closer to him than the others.

None of us really fit in with any of the other groups at school. We weren’t “cool” enough for the in-crowd and not “odd” enough for any of the out-crowd groups.

Each of us was in a different section – the way our school was arranged. You took all of your classes with the same group of 30 – 35 kids. There were 17 sections. However, we were all in the same level so we had the same teachers, lessons, assignments….This had been a bit overwhelming for me coming from an elementary where there was one class of each grade and all of my friends from there were in lower expectation sections. In other words they went to shop class I was prepared for college.

We ate lunch at the same time, which is probably where we met. Lost and lonely, we found refuge at a lunch table. And after several hundred lunches and running the halls between classes we became “school” friends. Occasionally I hung out with Pat on the weekend, since we lived near each other but other than school the four of us had little interaction.

Our jr. high and high school were basically on the same property but separated by acres of athletic fields. The move to the high school buildings for 10th grade was even more traumatic then the move from elementary to jr. high. Another jr. high about the same size joined at 10th grade and the size of the high school doubled. As I stumbled through the unfamiliar halls and classes where I did not know anyone, I was on the look-out for my jr. high buddies.

On the second or perhaps the third day, I spotted my old pal Hammie leaning against some lockers among several upper classmen.
“Hey, Hammie, How ya doin!”
He looked straight ahead, above me, beyond me. “My name is Michael”, he said without emotion or expression.
At 14 I was not the always aware of social situations. “Huh, ya, ok. Hey, Michael” …: as I cheerfully began to ask about his classes….
Sternly, but now with sadness in his eyes he spoke again.
“My name is Michael!” with a strong emphasis on the first syllable, “and you don’t know me.”

I then noticed his military fatigue jacket and the upper classmen who were dressed the same, and no one was smiling.

I stammered awkwardly and backed away, very confused. I thought a lot about our encounter over that day and for several days after. I realized that there were no longer any black kids in my classes anymore. My elementary school was 60 % black, but the high school was less than 10%.

I was confronted that year by the stream of racism, a cultural barrier that I was both unaware and unprepared. I discovered the ugly hand of prejudice that year. And I learned that not all divisions are desired but the pressures to maintain those divisions are unmovable. From time to time I saw my friend Michael. We learned the subtle acknowledgement of a head nod but never had another conversation.

I would say that I came to accept and function “where I belonged” but still never really understood. Here’s to you, Hammie.