Josh Krol

    A young boy growing up in a predominantly white neighborhood surrounded by Catholic churches, I never had an encounter with any racially fueled situations. I had a mulatto cousin, but he was just really tan in my young naïve days, back when I thought mulatto was a cool way to say that you’re tan.
    Went to an all-Catholic church run by old white women with a rosary in one hand and a ruler in the other.  There were only nine kids in the class, and those nine kids were the same through preschool, kindergarten, and grade school, plus or minus a few. All white and middle-class, with heavy Catholic backgrounds.  Every kid in my class was named after a saint or a prophet.
    When I turned 10, my parents got a divorce. I moved with my father to a nearby city. It was no Chicago, but it was a lot bigger than where I was. I now had 20 to 30 kids in my class, varying in colors, genders, and economic standings. One of the black boys in my grade named Jamal was hilarious. It doesn’t matter what color you are. If you can make someone laugh, then you have a good heart.
    In the next weeks to months to come, me and Jamal became the best of friends. Jamal always came over and played my Atari, jumped on my trampoline, and used my new basketball to play hoops at my middle class, two-story home. One day, I rode the bus home with Jamal, expecting what I had been shown for 11 years of my life. The bus took a couple of left turns and crossed a railroad track. I asked Jamal what the scribbles were on the walls and he said “art.” I could tell Jamal was getting more nervous the closer we got to his home. I just thought he was hungry.
    The bus dropped us off on the corner of a polluted street and a gravel alley. I can honestly say I was scared, but, without saying a word, I followed Jamal to his yard. As he opened the gate, he was starting to cry. He said to me that he was scared he was going to lose me as a friend because of the condition and size of their house. I was shocked that he would think such a dastardly thing. He dried his eyes and we went in where his mom had fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies and milk waiting for us. I told Jamal, anytime your mom is baking cookies, you can count on me being there.
    Jamal, who is a few years older, remains a good friend more than a decade later. He became a pharmacist and makes around $60,000 a year.