GUEST COLUMNIST: A lesson taught to young children

Chris Louie, Guest Columnist Chris Louie, Guest ColumnistClank, clank. Clank, clank. The train swayed back and forth and jumped up and down as it clamored over the uneven tracks below it. It was the Sunday of fall break and a few friends and I were making the long journey from 30th Street Station to various points abroad? in New Jersey. We had stationed ourselves in the very last car of the train, which was the most unstable and, consequently, relatively empty. "I got you!" screamed the high-pitched voice behind me. I turned and smiled at the sight of two children, a boy and a girl, maybe 7 or 8 years old each, playing hide-and-go-seek amid the vacant and vandalized seats of the car. It seems strange to me that the sight of children playing can bring light to even the most hardened of hearts. I guess it brings us back to a time of perpetual joy and laughter, before our shoulders had to broaden to support the duties and responsibilities that come with being an adult. Suddenly, a shout from the front of the car brought an abrupt end to my reminiscing. The boy turned and slowly made his way in the direction of the voice's origin. A middle-aged man wearing a woolen cap over his braided hair and a T-shirt which read "THAT is what's up!" stared sternly at the child and beckoned him forward. "How can you act like that?!?" The man's voice belied a hint of a Jamaican accent. "You are acting like a fool! You see the people in this car, laughing at you? That is exactly how THEY want you to act." "Shut up." The boy's reply shocked me. I remembered thinking that any kid who talked back to his father like that was asking for a beat down. "Don't take that tone with me. I am a black man. These people? they all want you to act like a fool. An idiot. That is how they keep our people down. You are a young black man. Act like it. Have respect for yourself." With that, the lecture ended. I was outraged and disgusted for my friends and I were the "they" that the man had referred to. That I, and anyone else, could be deemed a racist simply for finding amusement in the play of children is ridiculous -- whether they are black, white, yellow, red or purple. The hatred in the man's voice -- the "theys" and "thems" -- lingered for the rest of the trip. Have we, as a nation, as a society, as human beings, come so far to be so far behind? Then outrage turned to fear. Fear? for the future. Frightened? by what kind of impact a lesson on racism might have on one whose ears are not yet ready to hear it. Will the 8-year-old take to heart what the man said? Will he end his childish ways for fear that others are laughing at him instead of with him? Will innocence give way to bitterness? Will he become suspicious of everyone who does not happen to share the color of his skin -- the "theys?" The screech of the train as it pulled into the Trenton station jarred me back to consciousness. The passengers in the car rushed to gather their belongings. The young boy and girl brushed past the man with the woolen cap and took the left and right hand, respectively, of another man standing at the front of the car. A black man. Their father. The three of them, hand-in-hand, disappeared from the train. I grabbed my bags, full of textbooks and notes that were doomed to go unread that weekend and made my way for the exit. I checked my watch. The train was ahead of schedule that day? it had only arrived 10 minutes late. When I looked up, I caught sight of a little boy and a little girl running and laughing, weaving in and out of lines of ants in business suits marching to and fro, oblivious to anything but the fun they were having at that particular moment in time. I glanced the other way and saw the woolen-capped man hurrying up a set of stairs. I looked back again, but the boy and girl were long gone. I walked into the pride of the N.J. Transit and took a seat next to a man wearing a Drexel cap and reading a chapter of a textbook entitled The Wonderful World of Algebra. I rested my bags under my seat, leaned back and closed my eyes. And I smiled.