Heavy

by Kiese Laymon

I didn’t hate white folk. I didn’t fear white folk. I wasn’t easily impressed or even annoyed by white folk because even before I met actual white folk, I met every protagonist, antagonist, and writer of all the stories I ever read in first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth grade. At the same time, I met Wonder Woman, the narrator on The Wonder Years, Ricky from Silver Spoons, Booger from Revenge of the Nerds, Spock from Star Trek, Mallory from Family Ties, damn near all the coaches and owners of my favorite teams. I met Captain America, Miss America, “The American Dream” Dusty Rhodes. I met Luke Skywalker and his white father, even though his white father’s voice, outfit, and mask were blacker than thirty-seven midnights. I met poor white folk, rich white folk, and middle-class white folk. I met all the Jetsons, all the Flintstones, all the Beverly Hillbillies, the entire Full House, damn near everyone in Pee Wee’s Playhouse, all American presidents, the dudes they said were Jesus and Adam, the women they said were the Virgin Mary and Eve, and all the characters on Grandmama’s stories except for Angie and Jessie from All My Children. So even if we didn’t know real white folk, we knew a lot of the characters white folk wanted to be, and we knew who we were to those characters. That meant we knew white folk. That meant white folk did not know us.