When I was a kid, before my mom died, we lived in the Smith Homes Housing Projects in Detroit, Michigan. Our family was one of three or four white families that lived in about three blocks of government subsidized homes. The rest of the families who lived in those projects were black. My best friend was a black kid named Aaron Lewis and as far as I knew, everybody on the planet lived in a sea of black people, I didn't know any different.
One day one summer in 1969 I was walking somewhere with my brother Charlie. I spotted a black kid around my age and we walked up to where he was hanging out. When we got up to him I asked him how old he was and he said he was the same age as me, 7 years old. Wanting to show off for my big brother, who frankly never seemed impressed with anything about me or anything that I did, I said to the kid, "Yeah, well I'm 7 years old too and I bet I can beat you up." The kid looked at me and I handed my glasses to my brother. The kid told me if I wanted to fight then I should go right ahead.
I took one swing at him and it missed horribly. He then proceeded to kick my scrawny skinny lily white ass. He popped me in the face and before I knew what happened next he had me on the ground and was getting ready to wail on me. My brother stepped in and told the kid I to leave me alone because I was stupid and a weakling. After the black kid got off me I asked my brother why he didn't step in sooner and hit the kid, he told me it wasn't his fight, it was mine and that I was lucky he stepped in to stop it or else that kid would have really kicked my ass.
That was the last fight I got into willingly.
1 comment:
Interesting story, Doc. Thanks for sharing.
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