race to/from fear

Have you been ever been told "Go back where you came from?" 

I have. And it wasn't a cab driver telling me to go back to Alabama.

The first time I must have been 8 or 9. Walking in my upper-middle class suburban neighborhood to my best friend's house. Some teenagers pulled up in a Camaro (?), beat up and old. They start shouting a lot of garbage at me, telling me to "go back," and calling me a sand n*gger. They threatened to take their gun out of their car and shoot me if I didn't "get out of here." Having found guns before in the back of my friend's parents cars, it didn't seem an idle threat.

One of them, seeing me shaken and confused, got out and start yelling at me and shoving me around, slapping me upside my head. I was on the verge of tears or crying by that point. I honestly don't remember. He laughed, jumped back in the car, and they peeled off. 

As they sped away, I memorized their license plate through shuddering tears. That's what people did on TV, right? I tore into the nearby woods in case they came back, and stood there looking at the street for what was ten minutes but felt like an hour.

Humiliated, embarrassed, and confused, I couldn't go back home. I ran to my friend's house. I tried to compose myself as I rang the back doorbell. I broke down and told his mom and dad. We called the police. My friend and I played Mega-Man in the kitchen while we waited and I calmed down. Eventually a police officer came by, telling them they pulled over the teens - who had been drinking - and they were given a warning. I remember angrily thinking "that's it?!?" - but I definitely didn't want to go in and make a statement. To this day, I don't remember the rest of that afternoon. I don't know how I got home or if I even told my parents. But for many moments after - weeknights eating dhal and rice, every other Sunday at temple chanting mantras - I felt even more different, like an "other" hiding something from the town and people around me, that the color of my skin only teased.

That was 1985-86. 

=

Over the years, it happened several other times. Nothing as violent. Just words. Direct, veiled, or in passing. Heard on the radio, at grocery stores, in locker rooms, and by girls' or their parents. But an adolescent's confused identity gave way to a teen's projected indifference, and soon a college boy's rebellious anger. No matter what, I would (somehow) get out of the South.

Then, I did. And the world changed. I traveled the world. Got a job. Did well. Met people. Found the girl. Had a kid. The ugliness in the air was receding, but still always lurking, as you'd hear the occasional thing from an idiot on TV, or a guy with a Confederate flag in those places you didn't go. But now our President was a cool black man, and now there was a Panera near my parent's suburban house. 

For awhile my parents often asked when I would move closer to home. "So-and-so [who's white] just moved back." But somehow, maybe because of our then (black) President, the rhetoric started showing up more, coded in veiled media messages. The backlash was worse in the places I had gotten out of. I guess racism was more OK if we could all afford a panini or a latte? So I'd give my parents a weak excuse about jobs, career, and my industry (tech) being up north and on the coasts. My wife and I were going to go sailing in Croatia. We wanted kids, and they were going to grow up on the East coast, to which eachof us had escaped. 

Then, the black kids started getting shot. In Florida. Where my half-black nephew lives. But these were isolated incidents. He'd be OK - he was also half-Indian, right?

=

Then, it was 2016. A racist was elected to the highest office of the land. The weekend after we got away to upstate NY with our baby, who was not even one. At our hotel, I saw a swastika on the cover of the USA Today. I swore off social media, stopped talking to some faraway friends, and read my daughter lots of books as she sat in my lap every night. It was going to be OK, right?

=

Then, a year ago, they started locking up brown kids. Toddlers that, when I close my watering eyes, somehow still look like my daughter. I shuddered with anger, or was it fear? 

We lived in NY, and I worked in (one of) the greatest cities in the world. We are (safely) in a bubble, right?

=

Then, a few weeks ago, some of our elected leaders - all black and brown women - were told to go back home by our President, not surprisingly. The media exploded (again), but nothing really happened. 

Then, surprisingly, against all hopes, people at a rally chanted those words back to the President. Many of my coworkers and friends - almost all of whom are white - were outraged. So this time it was too much? 

All of my brown and black friends just shrugged our shoulders. This wasn't the first time, as we calmly recounted the many times we had heard it before. Our anger doesn't do much.

=

Then, last week, there were more shootings. I couldn't look at the details. Because it keeps happening and we do nothing. I'm numb. I make my daughter a spaceship out of cardboard boxes. We are moving into a new house soon. She'll have a backyard, which I'm not sure how I feel about. The American Dream, or so I've been told.

=

Then, last night I ran into the older Indian man who works in my building. His name is Edwin. He's in his late 50's, likes cricket and Chinese food. Despite being very blue collar, Edwin is always well dressed - often in a sweater over his button-up shirt, even in the summer. Edwin has grandkids that are my daughter's age, and he dotes on her when she stops by his desk to ask him questions (she really just wants a pink sticky note). Edwin is from Burma, is a dark brown, and speaks with a thick Indian-British accent. He's become a friend, has met my parents when they visit, and I plan to have a beer or two with him before we move out. 

In our brief mailroom chat last night, Edwin told me he cancelled a (well-earned) big family vacation - grandkids and all - to Pennsylvania. I figured it was a work thing, but then he cited El Paso. He's scared, and tells me "it is not worth the risk with my kids."

I don't understand anything anymore.