Inseparable and Equal

Friendship For Today by Patricia C. McKissack

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
Must stop sitting at Children's Room desk crying over books! Went to pieces totally upon discovery that the part about the cat was true.

Rosemary's got a lot going on in her life. Her best friend has polio, now she has to start in an integrated school without him and be the only black child in the class, her parents' marriage is crumbling, and the cat is dying! Can she survive?

McKissick's portrayal of a 6th grader is pretty authentic. She wants to lash back when she's harassed. She thinks unkind thoughts. She makes friends with some white children, but she recognizes that they're just "a friendship for today." There are no miraculous transformations, which as an adult I appreciate. People might grudgingly accept each other, tolerate them, but no one really changes totally from the inside out. And no fairy descends to hit people with the wand and make everything perfect again. [Blows nose.]

These people struggled with integration about 5 years before I started school. I had to have "negro" explained to me when I went to kindergarten (and there weren't any in my class) and didn't actually meet any personally until the third grade, when I sat next to Wesley and in front of Valerie and Carmelita, effectively surrounding me. They were in my ballet class (I simply must find that photo!) but not my church. And they were never actually my friends ... just friends for today. I played with my nearest neighbors, who were white, out of convenience, although I can't say they were actually nice to me, so I guess it was just as well we didn't stay in that neighborhood long.

I have known people who survived some of the most painful integration experiences ... in Boston. Some are still sickened by the demonstration of unbridled hatred and for some, their education was derailed with lasting consequences.

I was lucky to have been brought up in a family where racism was only tacit. My mother grew up having Italians denigrated (they were smelly ... something about garlic and permanent underwear). My father's mother was straight from Germany so her prejudices had been limited to Jews and dumme Polacken. If my father modeled his jokes on Archie Bunker, he also included Germans in his ridicule, so at least he gave everyone the needle. My mother's prejudice was more subtle and I took my cue from her. I don't want to hear anyone say they are not prejudiced. We are all still a long way from that. The very least we can do is own up to it and try to do better.


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