Superman was unquestionably my childhood hero.
As much as I so desperately wanted to be him, I was more like his bumbling alter ego Clark Kent.
I didn’t wear oversized glasses with plastic frames. My eyesight has always been great.
And I wouldn’t say I was clumsy. I was actually quite surefooted and athletic.
Could I fly? Figuratively, yes. I could jump high and far, and I was a shockingly fast runner.
I was, however, a tad bit awkward. I dressed in Khaki pants and sweater vests and wore loafers on my feet. My mom and big sisters dressed me in nice outfits, but my 1st grade classmates sometimes laughed at my attire as if I’d donned a clown costume. I never understood that.
Strangely, my clothes were similar to many of my classmates who weren’t teased at all!
I think being 1 of 5 Black children in an entire private school had a little to do with it.
Like Clark in the Superman movie, people would bump into me and not say excuse me or apologize. Most of the time they either didn’t see me or just crashed into me on purpose. Ruder than that was how some of the children would purposely attempt to get me dirty.
My mother couldn’t afford for me to have a clean backup outfit underneath. |THIS.
[By Mr. Joe Walker]
BLACK is a 9-chapter series that deals with race, social perspective, and inclusion. Each entry is based on real life events.
