Name-Calling

It was in middle school when much of the name-calling began. I never had quite fit in with my peers, but it was in fifth grade when that became even more pronounced. I did something at school that I had previously only done at home. I was in class and a boy -- I think his name was Jeff -- was sitting behind me kicking my seat. He was kicking it in that hypertension kind of way, a way to release pent-up energy, but this was not something I knew at the time. All I knew was this boy kept kicking my seat while we were taking a spelling test. I was trying to concentrate, but my nerves were shaken with his repetitive seat kicking. So I turned around and growled at him. I didn't growl loudly but a small deep guttural growl. I think my instinct told me to respond in this way instead of saying "stop it" because I knew we were not allowed to talk during the test. So I figured growling was not talking, right? But everyone heard me, not just the boy, and there was laughter and my face probably turning bright red. I don't remember if or how Ms. Tyner punished me for disrupting the class. Maybe she didn't because she knew I was about to get enough punishment from my peers. She just didn't know for how long.

This was the beginning of the DOG and UGLY years. Kids used a combination of Dog Ugly and calling me any kind of name they could use. There was even an acronym for DOG to be a more extensive insult, but I don't remember it. It was mostly boys who did this teasing and taunting, but the girls were bad enough in their own way: exclusivity. So when P.E. time came I often ended up playing with kids who were a year older or younger than me, kids who didn't know what happened in my classroom.

In seventh grade a new student came to Madison. His name was James and he became buddies with Roger. Roger had a vicious attitude, very bad ass and rebellious. He acted up a lot. James slid right into Roger's little circle of bad ass buddies when James snapped an attitude with me in American History class. He must've observed how others had been treating me and decided that he had to fit in and this was the way to do it. So he was vehement each time he "baaaah!" at me in the hallways, calling me a goat and making the loudest noises possible. No teacher ever seriously told him to stop. And other peers just smirked and laughed, amused at his antics.

One day, right after Ms. Stringer's American History class ended and most of the other students had left the trailer and were heading indoors to their lockers and to break, I called James over and said I needed to ask him a question. Since his buddies weren't around he didn't cock an attitude but he listened to me nicely ask, "Why do you make fun of me? Did I do something to you? What is it about me that makes you call me names?" And maybe the sad sincerity of my asking him these questions prevented him from being rude, but all he offered up as an answer was, "I don't know" while looking me straight in the face. I shook my head, lowering it, and he left. But the name-calling didn't stop after that. But I knew I had glimpsed for a brief moment that he sincerely didn't know why he did it, just that he felt he had to do it.

Since much of my middle and junior high school years was spent surviving constant name calling from my peers, I never made it a habit to do the same to others. I knew it hurt. I knew it was alienating.