At School - First Day

I still can’t believe what happened y’all… Miss Crocker whipped little man and I, and it was for something we didn’t deserve at all!

Today was the first day of school and we had the great opportunity to get our own books. I admit that I was somewhat excited because I never had a book of my very own, only mama did, since she is a teacher she has several books. Miss Crocker explained to us that the country superintendent of schools himself, brought the books down for us, so we had to be extra careful with them. 

    

    Sitting so close to the desk, I could see that the covers of the books, a motley red, were badly worn and that pencils, crayons, and ink had marred the grey edges of the pages. My anticipation at having my own book grew to a sinking disappointed. But Miss Crocker continued to call student by student, each and every one of them looking forward to receive their own book. She finally called me and as I returned from my trip to her desk, I noticed the first graders anxiously watching the disappearing pile. I turned back to little man and his face lit in eager excitement. I was worried of what his reaction would be to see the books in that situation, and not exactly brand new. He could sometimes annoy me but, still, he is my little brother and he seemed so anxious… Well I couldn’t do anything about it so I decided to start reading my book. When I finally looked back up from the world I had drifted in, I saw Miss Crocker sitting at Miss Davis's desk staring fiercely down at Little Man, who was pushing a book back upon the desk. Little man told Miss Crocker that he wanted to change his book because his was dirty, when actually all the books were. Little man went back to his desk and suddenly his eyes grew wide once he opened the only option Miss Crocker had given him. He got so furious after opening the first page that he threw the book with all his anxiety and started to stomp on it like a wild animal. I realized what was going on as soon as I turned on to the first page, where there was this table:

A knot of anger swelled in my throat at that moment and held there. But Miss Crocker directed Little Man to bend over the 'whipping chair’. Now I understood, I understood what Little Man was stressed about. I couldn’t let him get wiped for something like that, he was right, why did we need to get the books at their poorest conditions? Just because of our skin color? Does that matter any way? Just a stupid thin layer of skin can already determine everything? Why?

All my excitement from getting a ‘new’ book faded away in one single second. I just couldn’t understand why did it have to be that way, always. Why was ‘nigra’ not written in capitalized letters while 'White' was? I couldn’t let my little brother be punished for something like that, so I decided it was best to stand up for him. It did not turn out well; after all, I was not able to stop Little Man of getting whipped. The only thing I gained was a whip myself. I just wasn’t confirmed with the situation, and Miss Crocker didn’t seem to understand my point, she just stood up by saying 'this is what we'. I decided to reject my book like Little Man did and this is why we both ended up being punished. Whip after whip, it felt as if it was never going to end. It was the worst pain I’ve ever felt apart from when dad told us he was leaving. Well, that was a different kind of pain; it was more of an inner pain, right across the heart.

            After school I spoke with mama and she did not appear to be very upset with Little Man and I. She somehow agreed with us more than with Miss Crocker, although Mama didn’t think whipping us was wrong. She luckily glued a paper on top of every book so that the stupid table was unseen. I felt sort of bad for mama, since she was later on in trouble because of this. She only tried her best I guess, but still the paper was something and it was going to stay there, unseen, but there.