I’ve been playing basketball with high school boys.
Don’t judge me, I’m trying to lose some weight. They only play half court, and that is a perfect amount of space for my style of game. Lazy. So I laced up the ankle brace over my business socks, (you know it’s time forbidnesscause they’re business sockseeeeeeeewwwww…) laced up the Jordans, and went out to push some kids around today.
I get out there, and there are 5 black kids, and 7 of us honks. We start to get captains going, and sure enough, one of the black kids says, “Hey! Lets just play blacks versus whites!”
Hang on a sec.
What did you just say?!? I could not believe my poor ears, and what’s more, I couldn’t believe what happened next. THE COACH ALLOWED IT. That’s right, he allowed it. I said, “I don’t know if I can take part in this.” Everyone laughed, because I am, after all, the funny guy. So I say, “Alright, I’m in, but if I get called a honky, I’m gonna sue.” A couple minutes later the game started, and all I could think was, didn’t this get struck down in a court of law already?
Wanna take a guess at who won? Or do you even need to? I kid you not though, one of the black kids said, “Why are the whites gettin all the calls, coach?” Wow. That’s like having a grenade covered in Velcro come through the window while you’re wearing your Velcro shirt. All you can do is cover your vitals, make your peace with God, and hope you make it. The coach handled it well I think, until he said, “Alright! Blacks ball!” I almost winced.
Around that time, we integrated the teams. We put a white guy on the black team. Yup. They immediately lost. All told, nothing bad happened, and actually the kids had a lot of fun. Not one word was said about race, aside from the fact that we get more fouls, and I was proud of them for it. I think it just really goes to show that racism, hopefully, is dying out. I know some would disagree, but maybe I want to be a little optimistic here. Also, I think the ability to joke about it says a lot about a person. Since I’ve jested TWICE about race on here, I think I must be the coolest person in the world.
Not to toot my own horn or anything.