Can’t Hurt Me_ Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds @betweencovers

but hadn’t learned a damn thing. I was one of those kids who thought he was
gaming the system when, the whole time, I’d been gaming myself.
One morning, about halfway through the school year, I milled into Spanish class
and grabbed my workbook from a back cupboard. There was technique involved
in skating by. You didn’t have to pay attention, but you did have to make it seem
like you were, so I slumped into my seat, opened up my workbook, and fixed my
gaze on the teacher who lectured from the front of the room.
When I looked down at the page the whole room went silent. At least to me. Her
lips were still moving, but I couldn’t hear because my attention had narrowed on
the message left for me, and me alone.
We each had our own assigned workbook in that class, and my name was written
in pencil at the top right corner of the title page. That’s how they knew it was
mine. Below that, someone had drawn an image of me in a noose. It looked
rudimentary, like something out of the hangman game we used to play as kids.
Below that were the words.
Niger we’re gonna kill you!
They’d misspelled it, but I had no clue. I could barely spell myself, and they’d
made their fucking point. I looked around the room as my rage gathered like a
typhoon until it was literally buzzing in my ears. I’m not supposed to be here, I
thought to myself. I’m not supposed to be back in Brazil!
I took inventory of all the incidents I’d already experienced and decided I
couldn’t take much more. The teacher was still talking when I rose up without
warning. She called my name but I wasn’t trying to hear. I left the classroom,
notebook in hand, and bolted to the principal’s office. I was so enraged I didn’t
even stop at the front desk. I walked right into his office and dropped the
evidence on his desk.
“I’m tired of this shit,” I said.
Kirk Freeman was the principal at that time, and to this day he still remembers
looking up from his desk and seeing tears in my eyes. It wasn’t some mystery
why all this shit was happening in Brazil. Southern Indiana had always been a