Third, up until around age eleven, I wasn't too good at athletic skills. I couldn't really catch, throw, or hit a ball, which is a prominent “aspie' trait; lack of gross motor skills. In black youth culture, that was - and is - practically a crime punishable by death. It made me a big target of ridicule and taunting; derisive laughter and being called “sorry” was standard procedure with me. Even when my sports skills improved at around sixth grade, it was not enough to shake the reputation among the bulk of the black kids I had obtained at age nine.
Fourth, up until roughly my teen years I did not dress in the latest “hip” or “cool” styles or wear the “cool” brand of shoes. While the other boys were wearing knee-high tube socks, at ages nine and ten I was wearing “ankle-binders” While the other guys were wearing Nikes, Pro-Keds, Pumas, and Converse Doctor J's - the precursor to Nike Air Jordans - on their feet, I was wearing cheap K-Mart (the Wal-Mart of the 1970's) jogging shoes and Toughskins jeans from Sears that sometimes “flooded” - failed to cover the ankles so that my socks were showing. It wasn't until around the eighth grade that I started to wear what everyone else was wearing; it was then that I got my first Nike shoes. I remember them fondly - low-top white canvas with a light blue swoosh. Inevitably, I was ridiculed for the bulk of my time in the elementary upper grades, and it served as more cannon fodder for the majority of the black kids in my school.
In short, in black inner-city youth culture it was - and is - “cool” to not be seen as smart. I was. It was not seen as socially cool to get even decent grades, let alone top grades. I did. It was seen as cool to be disrespectful to authority and to get into trouble at school. I didn't - I was seen fondly by teachers and other adults as a good kid. It wasn't cool to talk to oneself. I did. It was cool to be tough and to fight. I didn't. It was cool to be good at sports. I wasn't, at least until much later on. It was expected to be dressed in the cool, hip fashions and to wear the fresh sneakers. I didn't for a long time. All largely due to being an “aspie” and unaware of needing to not get good grades, to get into trouble, to fight, to be great at sports, and to wear “cool” clothes in order to be accepted.
In the eyes of most of the black kids, I was - again, pardon the expression - a “fag”. A “mark”. “Goofy”. “Retarded”. As a result, I was summarily rejected and bullied, and ended up gravitating toward the white kids, who tended to treat me a little bit better than most of the black kids did. That led to even more derision from my black peers as an “Oreo” - black on the outside, white on the inside.
It was safe to say, looking back, that it hurt having people who looked like you socially reject you.
It hurt a lot, actually. So much so that even though I managed to find a few black friends in college, people who accepted me for who I was, because they, like me, were also smart and enjoyed success in school, I still felt largely alienated from the black community, specifically inner city black culture. Simply put, the black kids, by and large, treated me badly during my childhood, and I find it perhaps too difficult to forgive and forget, even though I should.
There was a time when even some of my own relatives took part in abusing and bullying me. I remember an exact date July 4, 1976, our nation's 200th birthday.
I was nine years old at the time, having celebrated my birthday two weeks before. I was taken to my aunt and uncle's house for the celebrations - food, fireworks, firecrackers, sparklers, the whole 9. I better not name the town, if I'm going to describe what happened next…
I was sitting on the front steps with my uncle, and he, to my recollection, was asking me something about if I knew how to fight. The next several minutes were a blur, as all of a sudden, a bunch of fists were landing on me. I tried to fight back, but I knew I looked pathetic. The next thing I knew, some seemingly thuggish neighbor girl with a cast on her arm clocked me and knocked me down, leading to some hysterical crying.
