In all of the talk about anti-racism/anti-oppression work I think there are some key elements missing: stories. It is only in telling our stories of our encounters with each other, I think, that we learn how to better love one another.

Here’s one from me:

When I was younger, seventh grade or so, I made friends with Katya. I did not make friends easily, having changed schools at least 5 times before then, so this was a big thing for me.

A couple of weeks after our initial connection at school, and after we’d spent several afternoons together doing homework or whatever, Katya told me that her family was originally from Poland, and that her parents spoke Polish at home. She revealed this information as if it were a big secret, confidential on some level.

I was fascinated. This was upstate New York, in a tiny little town right on the Vermont and Massachusetts border, where there was little or no racial diversity. Class differences, yes, but I don’t remember a single kid in that school who wasn’t white. So to know someone who was from another country was a pretty big deal.

I had no idea what to do with this knowledge, though, and junior high social awkwardness didn’t help much. I think I asked a few questions, but don’t remember anything specific.

Except one day. Katya and I were painting the set for the school play with one of our drama teachers, and we were fooling around making weird strokes in the paint. The teacher said something about our sloppy work, and I, thinking I was cleverly teasing my friend in that lighthearted way that friends do, said, “Well, Katya can’t help it, she’s Polish!”

Thoughtless.

I still remember the look on Katya’s face after I had said that. I had no idea of the history of “Polack” jokes or how Polish people were treated when they first started to come to this country as immigrants, I had no concept of her family’s history with harassment, or how sensitive she was to the differences between her family and the “mainstream.” I didn’t understand the full implications of my statement, I just knew that I had said something really hurtful. I just knew that I had betrayed my friend.

I think about that moment, usually in the middle of the night when I am defenseless against those haunting tidbits of memory that will rise up in those wee hours, and just wish that I hadn’t been so clueless. Was my intention to hurt my friend, one of the few friends I had at that point? Of course not.

Did that make her any less hurt? Not really.

In hindsight, I realize that it was a big step for her to share her heritage with me, being as sensitive as most junior high aged kids to how her family didn’t “fit in” with the rest of this very small town.

Well, I blew it. And I learned. And I’m still learning.