New Girl in School

By Carol Passmore

What can I tell you except that I was pretty excited about the first day of school. I'd been the new kid the year before and had worked really hard at being popular. I don't mean to brag, but I had been fairly successful. I picked my clothes day ahead and changed my mind four times that morning. Finally, I was standing with my friends in front of High Point Central High on a beautiful sunny morning.

"So," said Annette, "we decided to be nice to her."

"Who?" I asked, realizing that I had been daydreaming.

"To the nigger who's coming to school," said Annette. "The principal says we aren't going to have any trouble like they did in Little Rock."

Lib giggled. "Then you had better not call her a nigger."

"Sure," I said. "I think we should be nice to her." I hadn't really thought about our school being desegregated. Besides, High Point Central High was a big school. I'd probably never see her anyway.

I was wrong about that. Her name was Lynn and she was in my first period algebra class, sitting quietly in the back of the room, and in my second period English class, sitting quietly in the front. I didn't know where she went third period, but in fourth period history, she was sitting right beside me.

I didn't hear too much the teacher said, because somehow I got the idea that I would show her where the cafeteria was. I wondered if that would be considered being "too nice," but I also remembered my first lunch alone the year before. So when the bell rang, I politely offered Lynn a guided tour to the lunchroom.

By the time we went to our lockers-hers was near mine-and then to the cafeteria, there was a long line. Everyone got quiet when we joined it. After we got our meatloaf and lumpy mashed potatoes, I could see that the tables were getting full and I didn't see any space with Lib and the others. I spotted a half-empty table with some kids I didn't know and we sat there.

Instantly, those kids all got up and left, so Lynn and I had eight extra chairs in that jammed cafeteria. But it was obvious that no one was going to join us.

There we sat, like two kids on a deserted island, in the middle of that crowded cafeteria. I stared at Lynn and she stared at me. Her short black hair was wavy and her skin was a rich coppery brown. My brown hair was short and wavy and my skin with its summer tan, was almost as brown as
hers. I figured we could pass as sister.

Lynn poked at the disgusting-looking meat loaf. "You don't have to eat with me," she said. "You can go eat with your friends."

I stirred my peas into my potatoes while I thought about that. "If they don't want to come and eat with us," I muttered, "I'm not sure they're my friends."

So I stayed, and for all of our junior and senior years, Lynn and I ate lunch together. There was lots of good in those years and plenty that wasn't so good.

Lynn and I never had to hunt for a table in the cafeteria. We had our own private table right in the middle. The bad part was no one else ever worked up the courage to join us.

Another good thing was that my friends and a lot of other kids were polite to Lynn. The bad part was that they were polite to me also. When I bumped into Lib in the bathroom one day, she explained. "When we said friendly,' we didn't mean that friendly."

Some kids called us names and occasionally threw things at us, but nothing serious. To look on the bright side, there wasn't anyone in the school who didn't know who we were.

Another good thing was that after a few weeks of talking about what had happened in our classes that day, Lynn and I discovered that we had lots in common. Besides having almost all the same classes, we also had the same interests. If fate hadn't thrown us together, we'd probably have met and become good friends anyway.

Probably the best thing about those two years was that I met some people who worked for the American Friends Service Committee. They taught Lynn and me about nonviolence and helped us be nice to the people who called us names. They also introduced us to some other people in North Carolina who didn't think that the color of your skin should determine where you went to school or what job you could have. We had lots of fun with these people, too, which made up for the fact that we weren't involved in many of the high school social activities.

Sometimes now I think about these years and get out my old high school year books. In my sophomore year book, when I was working at being popular, lots of kids signed by book, saying how nice I was. In my junior year, only a few kids signed my book, and all they wrote was how they enjoyed being in my English class or algebra class, but nothing about me.

My senior year, they wrote different things. All those popular kids I had wanted for my friends wanted to sign my year book. They wrote how much they admired someone who would stand up for what she believed was right. They didn't say they had changed their minds about race relations, and I'm not sure being admired made up for being lonely and left out, but I as glad they were willing to sign.

But the best one was from Lynn, who wrote a whole page. She wrote how scared she had been on that first day and how glad she had been when I spoke to her. I was surprised, because she hadn't looked scared at all, but then, you don't know everything about your best friend.

Why did Carol offer to take Lynn on a tour of the lunchroom?
2. How do you think Carol felt when the other schoolmates got up and left the lunch table? How do you think Lynn felt? How would you feel if this happened to you?
3. Why did Carol continue to eat with Lynn? What did she sacrifice by doing this? Is the right thing always the easiest?
4. What makes people different? How do you feel when you are with someone who is differen of people wouldn’t be accepted in each of these groups? How is it decided who is in or who is out?
6. Have you ever been left out? How did you feel? Have you ever included someone who had been left out?
7.  PREAMBLE  of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (United Nations) .    Whereas recognition of  the inherent dignity and the equal and unalienable right of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.
Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (United Nations)     All human  beings  are born free and equal in dignity and human rights.  They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
    Reflecting on the quotes above:

• Is it a basic human right to be included in the social groups of any school government, job, or community group in which you spend all or part of your day?  How does this relate to Article 1?
• Are there any situations in which someone should be excluded? Temporarily?  Permantly?

• Does Carol have a moral obligation to sit with Lynn?  Why?  

• Do the other students have the obligation to include someone from a minority in their informal school groups, such as lunch?   

• If they allow a person of a minority to join them, do they have an obligation to include them in conversation?  

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From Lighting Candles in the Dark:  Stories of Courage and Action © 2001 QuakerPress of Friends General Conference.  Used with permission