Once I was on the sidelines, I started to become aware of things. First were the names on the jerseys of the kids around me. Out on the field, I didn’t notice—I mean, we’re all suited up, with helmets and mouth guards that distort our features behind the face masks. Only now, when helmets were off, did I realize that I didn’t know some of these kids. And yet I did. To the real me, at least half the faces and half the names were completely unfamiliar. But once I connected a name to a face, the memories from this new reality kicked in with a painful mental resonance that made me wince.

“You okay, man?” asked a teammate whose jersey said “Jenkins,” a kid who wasn’t on the team ten minutes ago. “That was one helluva sack out there.”

“Yeah, thanks,” I told him, trying not to wince at the vibrations twanking in my head.

Out on the field, Layton took the snap, and the play came to life. Leo went long. Layton passed. Leo caught the ball, to the roar of our fans and teammates. No one was near him. He took it all the way down for a touchdown!

It was only when he came back from the end zone that I realized something was very wrong with this triumphant picture.

“Damn,” said Jenkins, “he’s fast as a s’equal on payday!”

“Fast as a what?” But Jenkins didn’t even hear me—he was whooping and whistling and giving Leo the adulation he deserved.

Only here’s the thing . . .

It wasn’t Leo.

The name on his jersey said “Easley” and when he took off his helmet, it was this ginger dude, with skin about a million shades lighter than Leo’s. In fact, as I looked around me, there was an uneasy sameness to the team.

White. They were all white. This, on a team that is about as ethnically diverse as a team can get. But all the brown kids were nowhere to be seen. I looked up to the stands and saw this crazy sea of pale on both sides of the field. And I knew the sickness I now felt in my gut was only going to get worse.

7

My Sunscreen Ignorance

Here’s what I know:

Back in the 1950s there was this Supreme Court case called Brown v. Board of Education. It wasn’t just one case, but five cases combined into one. I know this because it was a question on a social studies test. I’m embarrassed to say that something so important—so monumental—had, until now, been reduced to an index card in my head.