The word still echoes in my mind when life is silent.  I cannot walk alone in the dark without hearing him.  I cannot sit alone in my room without being transported to a different place.

It wasn’t one of the places that you hear these stories from.  There were no dark alleys, no Confederate flags, no dirty glares.  In fact, everyone was having an amazing time.  I was in a bus with thirty classmates, driving around South Africa and pointing out places that I know as home.  The majority of the people in the bus were of color, and we felt safe around everyone.  We thought we respected each other’s differences.

A high-pitched giggle comes from the back of the bus, calling the attention of a chaperone because nothing good is ever happening when any of the boys in our class start high-pitched giggling.  No one bats an eye until a gasp sucks all the air from our lungs.  Our teacher’s locks (dreadlocks) slice through the air as she walks directly away from the boy in the back with a sketchbook in hand.  It was the first time I had ever seen her cry.  She walks, her wide nose facing up and hips swaying with each step, to trade the book off with the principal of the school.  The principal looks down at the page with her wispy blond hair almost covering the drawing.

It was crude.  Our dreadlocked teacher drawn as a cartoon monkey, holding a banana.  The thought bubble over her head, a phrase that I never want to repeat.  The principal’s face turned redder as she looked at the drawing, and eventually showed to the whole class. 

Wrong place to do this, young white boy.  You have white-blonde, ghost-like hair, your face losing more color as our eyes slowly turn towards you.  It’s been four years with you.  We all suspected it.  Your comments: how you are blacker than I am.  How you should be able to get a letter in that word for every “black card” you get.  How everything a white person says or does is racist.  Did we not tell you to stop?  Did we not tell you that you would get in trouble one day?  Did we trust you too much? 

You are like Penny Sparrow, responding to your wrongs by saying that you “don’t really mean it,” and that you “love our kind of people.”  This is how you responded every single time.

Time passes in the tense bus, and we eventually all get off to walk into the hotel.  He is mumbling, tears running down his face and face blossoming like roses.  I am sorry that we hurt you by finally pointing out the fact that racism is alive and well, even in our children.  I am sorry that you feel hurt for hurting us.  Is this how we forgave you all those other times?

He stepped off the bus in front of me, so close that I could finally hear his mumbling.

“Everything I do is racist to these n***ers.”

It was like a gunshot, except only one other person heard it.  And she looked back at him with enough violence in her eyes that it was more than I could do by hurting him physically. 

Despite his newfound shame, we still heard the words .  Despite his shame of being caught.  I wonder how many times he has gotten away with saying that word to make him not think he could get caught.  We continued walking, a little more of a gap between the three of us.  But silence remained.

I cannot sit alone without remembering this, but I console myself with the life around me.  I listen to my neighbor’s heavy snoring, rumbling through the walls like the anger all the brown people in the room felt.  I listen to music, bass pumping like our rapidly beating hearts.  And if there is nothing to distract me, I sing, I stand, I move, I rearrange myself to get this child out of my mind.  I swear he feels like a ghost, haunting me for the rest of my life.  He has the voice of a million people from back in Georgia, from years ago in South Africa, from everywhere.  They all mumble under his breath, all yell from his diaphragm, his mouth widening like a shark ready to take my blood.  They make me feel like a foreigner in my own home.  I can’t get him out.  I can’t get anything out.  But that is the reason I write, isn’t it?

We write to be heard.  And this is one of the many stories I have never told, for fear and for guilt held me back.  Their ropes tied around my mouth and around my waist, tying me back until my true friends were able to undo the knots.  When they did, it was all could do to open my mouth and speak again.  It hasn’t been a long time since that moment.  However, hearing that word is a common occasion for many.  Although it sneaks into your throat and poisons what is left of your confidence, this reaction is temporary.  You stand back up, your mouth opens again, and soon you will move on from your bus.  I can promise that your bus will soon exist only to push you forward.

This is not my only story.  This will not be my last story.  But that is my only story in which I have stayed silent.  I am a joyful, loving person, and I will always love.  Next time, and I’m sure there will be a next time, I will speak until I get the love back that I deserve.

And until then, I will live to be a leader for people of color, for queer people, for young women, and for the growing country.  Until then, I will make sure I surround myself with people who make me feel safe, and who make each other feel safe.  We will never be silent.