“You’re a nigger!”
My head began to spin when I realized she was referring to me. Pointing at me. It was my secret, my shame. I was frozen.
The others quickly joined in. “You’re a nigger!” they all shrieked. All together, in unison, they chanted, “You’re a nigger!” over and over. I thought it would never end.
The venom and hate with which these girls spewed this new iteration of their usual chant was so strong, it quite literally lifted me out of my body. I had no idea how to handle what was going on. It was all of them against me. They had planned it. They fooled me into thinking they actually liked me. They lured me hours away from home. They isolated me. They trapped me. Then they betrayed me. I exploded into hysterical tears. I was disoriented and terrified, and I thought that maybe, if I held on and just kept crying, surely a grown-up would come and stop the assault. But no one came.
Eventually, I heard another voice whimpering among the mob.
“Why are you doing this?” the small, brave voice asked. It was the older blond one.
The ugly sister of the prettiest shot back, “Because she is a nigger.”
I don’t remember anything else about that day. I don’t remember the ride home. I don’t remember telling my mother when I got back. How do you tell your all-white mother that your all-white “friends” just dragged you into their big all-white house in all-white Southampton, past an untouchable all-white room, just to corner you and call you the dirtiest thing in their all-white world? Nigger.
I was also scared my mother might make a massive public scene and make navigating life at school even more difficult for me. I had no language or coping skills for any of it. It was certainly not the first time I had been degraded by my schoolmates. I’d been singled out on the school bus and spit on. I’d gotten into physical fights. Often, I would clap back; my tongue was sharp, and I could be a real wiseass. Sometimes I even started fights. But for this I had no defense. I was not only outnumbered and isolated, I was bitterly betrayed. This was not your garden-variety schoolyard mean-girl scuffle. It was a devious and violent premeditated assault by girls I called my friends. I never spoke of it. I stuffed it inside. I had to find a way to survive those girls, that town, my family, and my pain.
She smiles through a thousand tears
And harbors adolescent fears
She dreams of all
That she can never be
She wades in insecurity
And hides herself inside of me
Don’t say she takes it all for granted
I’m well aware of all I have
Don’t think that I am disenchanted
Please understand
It seems as though I’ve always been
Somebody outside looking in
Well here I am for all of them to bleed
But they can’t take my heart from me
And they can’t bring me to my knees
They’ll never know the real me
—“Looking In”
“Mariah only has three shirts and she puts them in rotation!”
The cruel words crashed into the buzzing bustle of the in-between-class traffic of my seventh-grade hallway like a stink bomb. All the pattering of feet, clanging of lockers, chirping of small talk, and little giggles morphed into one giant laughing monster made of kids, sitting in the middle of the hallway pointing at me. My stomach collapsed and my face burst into flames. I thought I might vomit right there on the tile floor.
Middle school is a contact sport, and I was pretty skillful with my own sharp tongue. A lot of kids have to suffer having mean or “funny” names given to them by their peers because of how they look or some embarrassing event, but being teased for being poor felt like a different kind of cruel.
I was severely injured, but I did not let it show. I didn’t get sick in front of everybody. I didn’t give anyone the satisfaction of seeing me weakened. I showed no emotion and waited patiently for the monster to melt away, as the traffic had to resume and kids had to get to their classes. I understood after that there would be no recovering and no trying to belong. I would survive on the outside with three shirts and no friends in hopes that I would inevitably move again.
In our middle-class community, I was extremely self-conscious of living with a shabby wardrobe in a small dilapidated house; however, by the time I entered high school, I had developed some new survival skills. At that age I didn’t have any control over where I lived, but I could do something about what I wore. One of the few advantages of moving so many times was that I got a fresh crop of kids to try to fit in with. One go-round I managed to scrounge together a few girlfriends and convince them we should have a fashion swapping system where we’d exchange our trendiest pieces with one another and coordinate them differently. This gave the illusion that I had a more expansive and up-to-date wardrobe than I could ever afford.
The coolest thing I owned was an oversized red wool and black leather varsity jacket with AVIREX in big letters emblazoned across the back. It was a big deal for me to have a name-brand item, so I made sure I had a signature piece that was
