WARNING: This contains demeaning language, Burt getting hit in the face and people named Terrance... oh and racism!
"Laaaa deeeee daaaa deeeeee...." The lunch bell rang as the hallways busted open with people, kids of different, yet tightly grouped together. It was a rather ordinary day at the Robert E. Lee High School, one of the premier integrated high schools after the historic decision of the Brown versus the Board of Education court case. It was something that has never been done before of course, black students taking classes with white students... it should be a dream come true right?
One of the students taking Professor Burt Blanchard's social studies class was primarily black. His name? Polonius Alva Carbonium. An aspiring student from the urban setting of Chicago he was as he sat on the second row from the back of the classroom. 6 feet tall and looked quite intimidating, he was busy scribbling down notes about the American Civil War. It was ... the student's first day of high school a few weeks after the Board v. Brown decision, new students cropping up for the teacher's attention...
More importantly however, this was Burt Blachand's first class from the south. He was a pale, relatively unhealthy man due to a lack of time spent outdoors. He had a very thin, lanky body, with a height of about six foot two. His long, dark hair and soft features often got him mistaken for a woman at a large distance away. Up close, however, his face when relaxed had a relatively impressive look, with sharp eyebrows, high cheek bones, and an intense face that is still relatively free of aging. Unfortunately, he almost never kept a calm expression, which suits his face far better than any exaggerated expression would. He almost always wore his silver, half-circle glasses as he was teaching his class.
"As you can see children!" the teacher eloquently said as he waved his hand in an odd motion around the chalkboard, "A few years before the civil war... the counterinfe—I mean the Confederate States of America rather enjoyed their own agricultural system..." It was a tension-filled afternoon for the students in the class... but as Polonius remembered some of the rumors deep in his head; it was quite obvious that some of his phrases had... a certain southern quality to them... while many of the teacher's exaggerated phrases elicited interesting laughs from some of the new white students, most of the city kids seemed appalled. Unfortunately for the city kids, he was the teacher here and his word was the law.
The teacher on the other hand had different thoughts of his mind as well. He sorely missed the class he had in Atlanta, Georgia... grading clean cut papers, getting some glances from that beautiful Professor Lenora Desrodes... it was a bout of missing home and his comfortable life beforehand... but, as things changed and more teachers left for more lucrative jobs at different schools, he had to follow suit.
If there was one student that did not like this class... it was Terrence P. Williams. He wore a beret to class that he was given to by his Black Panther father... it was his second year redoing the 10th grade... and he was sitting besides Polonius as his beady eyes looked on to the teacher. From his perspective, this was quite the farce. The teacher was clearly choosing the southerners when it came to answering questions he would ask... Terrence's paper on Demark Vesey got a C-, a single red mark only stating "Who the heck is this guy!?" on it... If Polonius saw to his left he could see Terrance steamed like broccoli on the side... he obviously couldn't take this abuse...
And then it happened...
It seemed like a coordinated strike between three people, but it was getting too chaotic to see whom... it started with wads of notebooks pelting the teacher's short black hair... when the professor asked for the Negroes to stay down... then it just escalated... white kid after white kid was being punched by some black kids... it was getting too confusing for the white professor to see who was the mastermind behind it... especially when one of them socked him down in the privates.
After what seemed like 20 minutes of punching... some of the police officers had to step in and take Terrance... or as they called him in his Junior Black Panther meetings "Terrus" was escorted out of the classroom along with his cronies "So... it was clearly one of them Negros..." Professor Blanchard said as he rubbed his temples, a cold pack on the side of his face as he went to see the class in the afternoon. "I guess things haven't changed..." he thought out loud in his head as he took his seat, a gold plate at the front showing his name in ordained letters... but as the entire class took their seats, bruises and cuts out on pretty much all of them... only one student didn't seem hurt... the professor raised his eyebrows in an inquisitive way as he lowered his silver glasses to the student.
He was at the second row from the back...
...and he was still taking down notes...
"Maybe things have changed... maybe juuuuust a bit..." the professor murmured to himself... It was going to be the beginning of adjustment and lessons for everybody in the class, professor included...