childhood remembrances are always a drag
if you're Black
  . . .
and I really hope no white person ever has cause
to write about me
because they never understand
Black love is Black wealth and they'll
probably talk about my hard childhood
and never understand that
all the while I was quite happy

                                -Nikki Giovanni
                           "Nikki-Rosa," I973

There are good things about Bonna Willis and there are bad things about Bonna Willis, and right now I shouldn't be caring about any of them because right now we hate each other's guts and I don't guess that is going to change this June the way it usually does when school is out. Now that we're older you can bet all of that's over. I already know she won't be caught dead talking to no honky bitch this year, and the same goes for her from me only backwards using the word I won't say.

                            -Lynda Barry
                            The Good Times Are Killing Me, 1988
 

...............................................................

A brief conversation with a six-Year-old White girl named Justine reveals just how early guilt can intrude on children's interracial friendships. At first, Justine happily chattered away about Alison, a new Black girlfriend in her kindergarten class. "She's fun. We play together. I just like her." But when asked if she planned on making any other friends who were Black, Justine suddenly grew serious and eventually confided, "I'm afraid they won't like me." When asked why not, she said, "You know about slavery, right? I just learned about it in school. We were taught that some Whites were really mean to Black people. So I'm afraid that those Black girls who don't know me will think I'm going to be mean to them like those other Whites were."

Generations earlier, another White first-grader named Jane, who grew up in a small liberal college town in the North, responded far more naively when she first encountered a Black schoolmate in the first-grade girls' bathroom. Jane innocently asked the girl, "What does it feel like inside black skin?" To her horror, the girl burst out crying and went running out of the room to tell the teacher.

Across the country and for much of our nation's history, girls have struggled to understand the meaning of race. That girls of different racial backgrounds might actually become friends is a relatively recent development, though, by and large. With the exception of a few White girls in the antebellum South who sometimes played with the Black daughters of house slaves and, after abolition, with the daughters of house servants, and a few Northern girls like Jane who lived in one of the few integrated communities that existed, most White girls and Black girls in this country did not expect to become friends. In fact, most women over the age of forty never had much contact as children with girls of the other race. Such women were the last generation to come of age largely before Civil Rights, school desegregation, and multicultural curricular initiatives. Today, more girls like Justine and Alison are not only interacting, but are doing so with far greater knowledge of societal racial issues than girls of years past.

In this chapter we want to look at the ways young girls move from simple expressions of curiosity about each other's race and skin color to a sophisticated awareness of race and racism in America. More specifically, what is the role of gender in shaping children's cross-race friendships? Among the factors we explore are neighborhood and school integration, prejudice, physical attractiveness, and skin color.

Early Childhood

Infants lying next to each other in the hospital nursery are unaware of race. It will be months before they have even the slightest clue that they have any identity apart from their mothers. Exactly how children come to acquire a sense of self, and gain an understanding of how that self fits into the larger social order, is a remarkable process that has been the subject of much psychological research. We now know that children begin to understand both their racial and sexual identities during their first 'few years of life. Black children tend to establish a sense of racial identity ahead of White children, perhaps because our society is so aware of race, and girls tend to be attuned to the nuances of their social identities slightly ahead of boys.

After gaining a sense of their own identities, children next learn how to classify others socially. Marguerite Alejandro-Wright, one of the psychologists who have studied the unfolding of a child's racial awareness, sees the process as a multistage development that begins with the child's recognition of simple physical differences. She asked thirty-two Black girls from three different age groupings-three- to four-year-olds, five- to six-year-olds, and eight- to ten-year-olds-to respond to a set of photographs of children with different skin colors. The girls were given cut-out figures with various hair styles and facial features, and then asked to manipulate these items in response to a series of questions and tasks regarding issues of race. For example, one activity required that all the photos that looked as if they went together be grouped together.

Alejandro-Wright found, as have other researchers, that children as young as three can sort photos on the basis of skin color and hair texture. She termed this level of racial awareness idiosyncratic, because children this young do not employ or really understand commonly accepted race 1 terms. Instead, they prefer their own. One biracial girl referred to her White mother as pink, and described another African American child as gray. Other popular race adjectives used by three- to four-year-old children included tan, coffee, and beige. Ironically, the one term most rejected by children at this stage was black.

According to developmental psychologist Jean Piaget, children at this age are too concrete in their thinking to regard the word black as anything but a Color. To three-year-olds, calling someone Black, when visually that person is not, makes no sense. Christine Kerwin, a school psychologist In Peekskill, New York, concurs on the basis of her own research. "These kids simply call it what it is in the absence of racial prejudice."

One look at nursery school children of different races climbing all over each other further supports such observations. At this point in their lives, they are old enough to recognize rudimentary physical differences between races, but too young to infer personality traits based on them. In other words, the ugly business of racial stereotyping has not yet begun.

But by the age of four or five, children enter another phase in their understanding of racial classification, a stage Alejandro-Wright calls "subliminal awareness." At this age, children are capable of using conventional labels to sort others by race, but they don't realize that membership in any one racial grouping is exclusive and permanent. According to Piaget, children at this age lack the understanding that the race that they (and others) are at this time is the race that they (and others) will always be. Thus, a four-year-old White girl may insist that she can become Black by getting a dark tan, while a Black girl of the same age may feel that by donning a blond wig, she can become White like the rock star Madonna.

Such talk can be either amusing or alarming to parents. Brooke L., a White college student in her twenties, remembered that, when she was young, she was convinced that she was Black. She was taken care of by a friend of her mother's, an African American woman named Mrs. Richie, and all of Brooke's dolls were Black, the hand-me-downs from Mrs. Richie's children. On Sundays, Brooke used to accompany Mrs. Richie to her all-Black Baptist church. But when she told her mother that she was Black, her mother laughed and said, "No, honey, you're not Black; you're White." Brooke burst out crying and begged, "Please, please, please, aren't I Black even a little?" provoking more laughter from her mom.

For African American parents, however, confusion in their young children about wanting to be White can raise concerns about self-hatred. Ever since the 1930s, when psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark first conducted their doll preference studies, psychologists have known that children as young as three will often reject playing with Black dolls in favor of White-looking dolls. Researchers since then have found that the phenomenon is both short-lived and easy to manipulate. In 1975, psychologists Albert Roberts, Kathleen Mosley, and Maureen Chamberlain found that, while 40 percent of the three- to four-year-old Black girls thought that the blue-eyed White doll was "prettiest," by ages six and seven, only 23 percent did. And in 1988, psychologist Darlene Powell-Hopson and her husband, Derek Hopson, reported that preference rates for Black dolls could be dramatically increased by repeatedly pairing positive words, such as pretty and nice, with Black dolls rather than White dolls. The fact is that before the age of four or five, most children are blissfully unaware of racial stereotyping or prejudices.

Once they start preschool, however, children begin to grasp the larger social implications of race in America. When that happens, the relative innocence of earlier cross-race friendships begins to fade. By the time they are five, many of today's children have watched enough television to become attuned to its stereotypes, overheard enough adult conversation to know what members of their families think about "those others," and learned enough at school-in the classroom and on the playground-to realize "that some Whites were really mean to Black people," as Justine put it. Unfortunately, as awareness about various racial stereotypes grows, so does the use of racist slurs. Certain race-related terms are not just descriptive of physical difference; they have the power to belittle, hurt, and enrage.

A White woman named Alana, now in her twenties, recalls that she was six when she first gained awareness of the social importance of race. The year before, her family had moved to a small town in the Midwest, and Alana quickly became friends with Nina, a Black girl who lived on their block. All summer the two girls played without incident. But one day after school began, Alana returned home to discover that the furniture on her front porch was gone. As she stood there pondering the empty space, a neighbor came by to offer his opinion on the matter. "Some niggers probably took it," he said. Alana, never having heard the word niggers, assumed that it meant something like bandits, used in the Frito Bandito commercials that were popular at that time. Later that evening, when her mother came home, Alana announced, without guile, "Some niggers took our porch furniture." Without questioning why her daughter assumed this, Alana's mother flew across the room, grabbed her arm, and shook her, exclaiming, "Don't you ever use that word again!" Alana was confused about exactly what she had done to make her mother react so violently. It wasn't until her mother let her go, and more calmly stated, "We use the word Black in this household," that Alana realized what nigger meant. She also instinctively knew, by her mother's response, that she now had in her possession a weapon she could use against her girlfriend Nina. Although Alana claims never to have used the n word, just knowing that she could somehow shifted the power in her favor in future dealings with Nina.

The Middle Years

By the time children are in second and third grade, their understanding of race undergoes its final transition. By now they know that race is based not just on physical difference, but embraces a host of other factors, such as style of dress, speech patterns, culinary tastes, musical preferences, socioeconomic status, lifestyles, history, and ancestry, that set Whites and Blacks apart, When asked how you could tell if someone was Black, one ten-year-old Black girl from Alejandro-Wright's study replied, "'Cause you were born that way." But if the person's skin color was actually White? She then said, "For real, they would still be Black if they were born that way." Such seemingly complex contradictions in racial classification are not possible in younger children. By the age of seven or eight, children deliver race-inspired compliments and insults, such as "you jump rope like a Black girl" and "you talk like a White girl," with increasing frequency.

Because White children tend to lag in their awareness of race, most of the research on racial identity is conducted on Black children. There is also a growing recognition that Whites are able to choose whether or not to have a racial identity. That is, for many Whites, race is something that only Blacks have. While there is much for Blacks and other races to celebrate about racial or ethnic identity in terms of culture, food, language, and music, there is also a stigma attached to being different. Children who do not fit in are always vulnerable to taunting by those who do. And it can be especially painful for Black girls, because so much of each girl's identity has to do with her appearance.

At birth, children are defined only by their biological distinction, but very quickly their sexual identity begins to take on cultural overtones. The process is helped along by both family members and friends, who typically describe female newborns as pretty and sweet, while describing male newborns of the same size and appearance as big and strong. Gender-role messages are further reinforced by children's books, toys, television, and films. The result is that, by the time they are three, children have figured out not only that there are two sexes in the world, but also that they have a well defined role to play as a boy or as a girl. This is true despite more than two decades of challenges to traditional child-rearing practices.

As a result of the differences, each has clear preferences in toys and styles of play. In general, boys prefer larger, more organized group activities, like playing with balls and toy guns. Girls tend to gravitate toward smaller, more intimate groups of two or three, with whom they play dolls, comb hair, and jump rope. Such activities for girls, in particular, turn out to greatly affect the quality and chances for developing friendships with girls from other racial backgrounds.

Playing with dolls is an enormously popular activity for girls of both races. Historically, with the exception of novelty mammy-style dolls, nearly all the dolls available for parents to buy used to be White, with long usually blond-hair and blue eyes. Before the nineteen-sixties, major toy companies never made dolls with African American features; studies indicated that even most Black girls rejected dolls that looked like themselves. Following the activist era of the sixties, with its powerful messages of Black pride, however, a growing number of Black parents began to question the possibly damaging effect on their daughters' identity and self-esteem from playing with White-looking dolls. In response to growing demands for dolls with more Black-looking features, toy companies finally began to manufacture Black dolls, beginning in 1968 with Mattel's Christie.

How is girls' cross-race play affected by dolls that are White instead of Black? The meager evidence suggests that there are wide variations. For some Black girls, having only a White doll to play with can produce strong feelings of resentment. In her novel The Bluest Eye, African American novelist Toni Morrison captures the kind of explosive anger that can develop. A young Black girl named Claudia opens a gift on Christmas, to find a blond, blue-eyed doll staring back at her. The rage she feels is palpable.

Psychologists Joseph Hraba and Geoffrey Grant found evidence that four- to eight-year-old Black girls who enjoyed friendships of both races were, in fact, more likely to prefer playing with Black dolls than were Black girls whose friends were exclusively Black. These findings suggest that having a White girlfriend is not only not damaging to a Black girl's racial identity and pride, but may be racially affirming.

In a related study, psychologist Margaret Spencer found that Black children who are taught by their mothers about civil rights, racial discrimination, and Black history get along better with White children than do Black children who are ignorant of their own history. In other words, a strong racial identity may facilitate rather than detract from a young African American girl's desire to form friendships with children of another race.

White girls, too, benefit from playing with dolls that are Black. We discovered from our interviews for this book that a growing number of White mothers are now buying their daughters Black dolls along with White dolls. One White mother, a professional in her thirties named Sara, from New York City, explained her decision this way:

Another form of play that is uniquely feminine is hair grooming. A surprising number of women of both races have strong childhood memories of playing with the hair of other girls of both races. Throughout elementary school, both Black and White girls want to stroke, comb, and pull the hair of others and explore the many fascinating hair styles worn by girls of different races. One Black woman, now in her thirties, remembers that at the pajama parties she used to attend with her White girlfriends, the main activity was playing with each other's hair. At the time, she was wearing hers in Afro puffs-a popular style in which the hair is parted in the center and then puffed out on either side to form two mini Afros. "The White girls used to just love to make my 'puffs' stick straight up. They thought it was the neatest thing in the world that my hair would stay where they put it. There was nothing mean-spirited or embarrassing about the activity. We were just being girls." And she used to enjoy combing the long straight hair of the White girls. A White woman
named Kara, now in her twenties, used to love to braid the hair of her best girlfriend in elementary school, who was Black. "You could braid it all the way down to the end and it would stay put without a rubber band!" Kara used to wear her own long hair down, but her friend was not able to do the same because her mother said that her hair was too pouffy." And another White woman named Nana, now in her thirties, remembers that one of her first memories of a Black girl at school had to do with hair. When Nana was just starting first grade, she stood in line in front of a Black girl whom she did not know. Suddenly, Nana became aware that her hair was being touched by the Black girl, who stroked it, repeating, "Soft, soft. You have the softest, prettiest hair." By the end of the school year, the same girl viciously yanked Nana's hair whenever she could. Issues of hair, and how that feature can divide White women from Black women, is explored more fully in our chapter on beauty.

Another common play activity of young girls is jumping rope. But unlike playing with dolls or grooming hair, it is an activity in which African American girls often seem to excel. More important, it has nothing to do with looks, which are subjective and based in culture, and everything to do with individual athletic coordination and skill. In particular, Black girls excel at a style of jump roping known as double-dutch, in which two ropes are swung together but in opposite directions. Every year Black girls dominate the national double-dutch contest, and those who are proficient at double-dutch see themselves as special, with a skill that distinguishes them from White girls. As Mattie, now aged fifteen, admitted:

In grammar school, I lived for recess, when a crowd of White girls would just stare at me and my girlfriends jumping rope. It made me feel so good-like I was good at something that they could only dream about.

Of course, there are many other factors that affect the likelihood of girls developing cross-race friendships. The most important is whether the neighborhood they live in and the school they attend are racially segregated or racially mixed. According to social psychologists, the single most important factor affecting friendship is proximity. Conversely, the biggest obstacle is distance. The implications of this are enormous, because the majority of neighborhoods in this country are still segregated by race. For White children who live in middle-class, primarily White suburban areas, and for those who reside in vast stretches of the rural Midwest, the chances of having a Black friend are highly diminished. The same can be said for many Black children who live in the central city, as well as those who dwell in remote rural areas of the deep South.

The extent of neighborhood segregation in America was documented in the 1987 book Divided Neighborhoods, edited by Gary A. Tobin. In the introduction, Tobin refutes several myths, including the one that segregation has been significantly reduced since the 196os. He also corrects the misconception that where racial segregation does still exist, it is because minorities are poor (that is, since housing markets are formed by income, segregation is merely a reflection of that economic reality). In fact, the overwhelming evidence indicates that "poor whites are no more likely to live with poor blacks than upper-middle-class-income blacks are to live with upper-middle-income whites." He also helps to overturn the myth that minorities cluster together because they prefer living among their own kind. While some certainly do, strong evidence suggests that it is mostly Whites who, in the words of Tobin, "prefer not to live with blacks." Sociologist John Farley, one of the book's contributors, presents census data showing that from 1970 to 198o, the percentage of Blacks still living in neighborhood tracts where the population is at least 8o to 95 percent Black is holding steady, at around 70 percent. Although the percentage of Whites living in neighborhoods where the population is less than percent Black has dropped during this same period-from 70 percent in 1970 to about 52 percent in 198o-Farley predicts that segregation levels will not decline much further. His research indicates that most Whites, whether urban or suburban, want to live in primarily White neighborhoods. When a neighborhood starts to become too racially mixed," other Whites stop moving in. And once that happens, the neighborhood starts to destabilize and ultimately turns Black.

A fictional example of how a destabilized neighborhood fosters cross-race friendships can be found in the cartoonist Lynda Barry's semi-autobiographical book The Good Times Are Killing Me. The protagonist, Edna Atkins, is a young White girl who lives in a neighborhood that used to be predominantly White, but over the years has become racially mixed, as Chinese, Black, Japanese, and Filipino families have moved in. Edna's parents, scared of the neighborhood's changing demographics, have forbidden Edna to have any Black children over to play. One day, however, a Black girl named Bonna Willis comes to visit because word has gotten out among the neighborhood children that Edna has turned her parents' basement into the Record Player Night Club. Although Edna is concerned about Bonna's presence, she has no White girlfriends and desperately wants a friend.  "That night I imagine me and Bonna becoming best friends," says Edna. "I imagined naming the Record Player Night Club 'Edna and Bonna's Record Player Night Club at Edna's." Edna's dream comes true-she and Bonna do become best friends, at least for a while.

Neighborhood segregation in particular limits the opportunities for young girls to form cross-race friendships. Parents, regardless of race, are more protective of daughters than of sons in setting boundaries for how far they can roam from home. And as we shall discuss later, boys have more competitive sporting events that help to pull them out of their immediate communities to meet boys of another race. But the chances are that most girls, unless they happen to live within easy walking distance of girls of different races, will grow up without a true cross-race friendship.

Children who live in segregated neighborhoods but attend racially integrated schools are also unlikely to develop close interracial friendships. To thrive, a close friendship needs long stretches of unstructured play time, the kind not offered in classrooms. An African American actress named Tracey recalled the, way she became friends with a White girl in the fourth grade, after her family moved from an all-Black city neighborhood in Chicago to a racially mixed suburb on Chicago's South Side. In her old neighborhood, Tracey had not known any White children. On the second day of class at her new school, she struck up a conversation with a White girl named Rachel, who was sitting next to her and who also wore glasses. But it wasn't until later, when they discovered that they lived on the same street, that their friendship was cemented.

A small percentage of Black girls dwell in neighborhoods and attend schools that are primarily White. The effects on their self-esteem are varied. Some thrive, especially in terms of school achievement and later career success. Lynn, an African American woman who is now thirty and a successful business executive, recalls:

My early years were spent in a town in Nebraska, so you know that my girlfriends growing up were all White. But because of that, I believe that I now have an advantage in the workplace, compared to Black women who did not know any White girls when young.  Other Black girls, who go from living in a predominantly Black neighborhood to one that is predominantly White, may find the adjustment psychologically difficult. In her popular children's book series, The Baby Sitters Club, Ann M. Martin, through the story of twelve-year-old Jessica, touches on the pain this can cause. As the only Black girl in "the club," Jessica reflects:

Of course, for children who do not live in racially diverse neighborhoods, school is often their first exposure to children of another race. Research shows that even children who live in segregated neighborhoods, but attend nearby integrated schools, are more accepting of each other than of those who are bussed in. In other words, children know which kids belong at their school and which do not. Studies also indicate that when the balance of children of both races is nearly equal, more children will cross the race line to become friends than when the class population is tilted in one direction or the other. Thus, the more racially balanced the school, the easier it is for children to treat each other equally and the less likely it is for them to treat members of a different race as "those others."

These findings are corroborated by the racial attitudes of two White sisters we interviewed, Meggin, nine, and Shawn, seven, who live in a racially diverse neighborhood and attend a school that is roughly one-third White, one-third Hispanic, and one-third Black. When asked whether they had any close friends who were Black, Meggin and Shawn both said yes. When asked if they ever had problems getting along with Black girlfriends because of their racial differences, Meggin and Shawn just looked at each other and, in a somewhat perplexed tone, replied, "No." After all, why would they be friends if they didn't get along? Clearly, for Meggin and Shawn, close friends were made on the basis of their being fun.

When the race ratio at school is way out of kilter, however, it is harder on girls than boys. Psychologist Janet Kistner has found in her classroom observations that young Black girls in mostly White classes, and White girls in predominantly Black classrooms, experience more social rejection than boys in comparable situations. She blames this difference on the fact that girls tend to play in small groups of one to three best friends, while boys are more likely to participate in team sports, which may encourage racial mixing, if only to reach the necessary numbers to play.

As in most neighborhoods, when schools are either predominantly one race or another, differences in social or economic class are also evident. Because White communities, on the whole, statistically are wealthier than most Black communities, everything from the physical facilities and the quality of instruction to the availability of classroom supplies may be better at a school that has more White students than Black students. That means that the experiences of a White girl attending a mostly Black grammar school, compared with those of a Black girl attending a mostly White grammar school, may be very different in ways that go beyond race. A White girl in a predominantly Black school may need to act tough in order to survive psychologically, especially if the school is a poor inner-city school. A Black girl in a predominantly White school, on the other hand, may become quiet and withdrawn, especially if the school is an exclusive preparatory school. These are two examples at the extremes, but other patterns of solo racial status also exist.

Jacqueline Woodson's 1994 novel I Hadn't Meant to Tell You This offers a fictional example of a grammar school in which the usual relations between race and class are reversed. Her story takes place in Chauncey, Ohio, where the majority African American students are prosperous and the minority White students are poor. The book centers on the friendship between a well-to-do Black girl named Marie and a impoverished White girl named Lena, who is also an incest survivor. In one scene, after Lena expresses

doubt that she will ever get to go to college, Marie reflects on her own advantages in life:

In our house, Dad was king, and I know that his racist views influenced mine. I was so mean to the Black girls in grade school. I called them ugly names right to their face, and you can bet whenever I told Dad about it, he was proud. It wasn't until I went away to school, and took some classes from African American professors, that I began to rethink and develop my own views about racial matters. Now, I deeply regret all those terrible things that I did and said to those Black girls in my elementary school.

Skin color, too, can have an impact on cross-race relations. As one six year-old White girl put it, "I like two of the tan girls in my class, but I am not friends with any of the girls who are really, really black. I'm afraid of them." Skin-color prejudice is the subject of our first book (written with Ronald Hall), The Color Complex: The Politics of Skin Color Among African Americans. There, we traced the rise of colorism, as it has come to be called, and documented scientific research demonstrating a pattern of color classism in America. Within the African American community, for example, one's skin color can affect earning potential, career advancement, and dating popularity. Many, if not most, Whites are only vaguely aware of the issue. How, then, would a young White girl like the one quoted above pick up such negative attitudes about dark skin color? Quite possibly, it starts with children's fairy tales and folklore. The evil witches who populate children's literature are both hideously scary and always dressed in black. The symbolism of color abounds in Saturday morning cartoon shows and reruns of old Westerns, where the bad guys always dress in black, and the good guys-the sheriffs, the fairy princesses, the virtuous brides, and angels-wear white and usually are White. Prolonged exposure to such color stereotyping reinforces the belief that White means good and Black means bad.

Young girls in particular are highly attuned to the nuances of physical attractiveness. Compared with boys, they are much more sensitive to the social importance of good looks, including skin color. According to research by social psychologists on physical attractiveness and discrimination, girls of both races by the age of three are capable of ranking others by prettiness in ways that are consistent with adult judgments. Girls of similar physical attractiveness seek each other out in nursery school. It seems that pretty White girls who reject dark-skinned Black girls may be doing so for reasons having to do with their perceived social desirability. An attractive White accountant named Becky, now in her late twenties, admitted to us:

The greater willingness of White girls to befriend Black girls with light skin may also be driven by the perception that such girls are "Whiter" and. therefore less different. In some cases, when the light-skinned Black girl is biracial, the physical differences between them may in fact be very slight.' Biracial children vary widely in skin color, but on average they have lighter, skin than children of two African American parents, although they too can range from dark to extremely light because of ancestral race mixing. And as discussed in The Color Complex, extremely light-skinned African American' children may sometimes be rejected by other darker-skinned African American children, who tease them for "looking and acting too White." When this happens, a very light-skinned Black or biracial girl may have to turn to White girls, because they're the only ones who will be friends with her. This is what happened to Jerrilyn, a biracial girl with near-White skin, light-colored eyes, and long wavy hair. Now in her late thirties, Jerrilyn can still recall the constant teasing from other Black children because she looked White. The White girls, on the other hand, accepted her without problem.

Some biracial children feel that they serve as bridges between the two racial communities, moving easily from one racial group to the other. The ease with which biracial girls are able to do this may depend, in part, on whether their mothers are Black or White. Girls with White mothers and Black fathers-the more common pattern among interracial relationships and marriages in this country-have an easier time approaching and befriending White girls than do girls who have Black mothers and White fathers. This makes sense, when one considers that, with a White mother in their life, they already have a presumably loving cross-race female relationship.

A Black or biracial girl who is adopted by White parents has a similar advantage. Growing up in a White household gives such girls a greater sense of ease in the presence of other Whites. And if they are very lightskinned, and not particularly self-identified as Black, White girlfriends may not view or treat them as Black. So it was with Katie, a light-skinned biracial girl who was adopted during the early sixties by a White family that lived in a predominantly White town in Minnesota. Not wanting to risk social rejection, and perhaps not fully understanding that she was racially mixed, Katie simply let her friends assume that she was White. She became what is sometimes called an inadvertent passer, although Katie does remember several instances that suggest her White friends had an inkling that she was different from them. In third grade, a popular number for sing-along was an old slave tune called "Cotton Needs Pickin (So Bad)." Whenever her classmates requested this bizarre little ditty, which to Katie's dismay seemed to be every day, they would gather around her and pick at her nappy hair as though it were cotton. Although the teacher reprimanded the children for doing this, Katie would weakly protest, saying, "It's okay. I don't mind." Katie also remembers that her White girlfriends used to call her "noseflat."

Because of the potential for alienating experiences like Katie's, in 1972 the National Association of Black Social Workers took a stand officially opposing the adoption by White families of Black children, even biracial ones like Katie. This policy has been in effect in most states since then. Harvard University law professor Elizabeth Bartholet claims, however, that "there is not a shred of evidence to support that kids do better on racial identity if they are raised in a same-race home." She is among a growing number of professionals challenging the NABSW policy, which she feels harms Black children who are languishing in foster homes when they could be adopted by loving White parents. While research on the racial identity of transracially adopted Black children indicates that it does often take a little longer for racial identity to develop- age four instead of age three- once it does, these children usually do fine. This is especially true of those Black children whose White parents provide them with lots of opportunities to explore their racial heritage. The issue is discussed at greater length later in this book.

The Teen Years

Depending on a girl's racial makeup, her physical attractiveness, her family's circumstances, and whether or not she grew up in a racially mixed neighborhood or attended an integrated or segregated school, interracial friendships of girls in their middle childhood years clearly can and often do blossom. However, as the girls approach puberty, social groups that were once based primarily on gender begin to be shaped by other factors, including those which are strictly racial. The result is a dramatic drop in the number of same-sex interracial friendships.

The decline in cross-race relations as children become older has been documented by psychologist Steve Asher. He found that 24 percent of
White third-graders named a Black student as a best friend, while 37 percent of Black children named a White student as a best friend. By high school, these percentages were considerably reduced. Asher found that among White tenth-graders, only 8 percent named a Black student as a best friend; among Black tenth-graders, a mere 4 percent named a White student as a best friend.

These figures are discouragingly low, although it should be pointed out that they represent "best friend" status only. Certainly, there are many other kinds of cross-race friendships and informal relationships in junior high and high school that don't fit into this category. Still, the evidence is incontrovertible: during adolescence, interracial friendships suffer a huge decline.

Perhaps this is not so surprising. After all, someone of this age wearing the wrong brand of jeans can become a social outcast. Issues of race are bound to come into play as both White and Black teens forge new identities for themselves. But for teenage girls in particular, same-sex friendships are intense, and sudden shifts in social relations can be confusing and painful. As one fifteen-year-old Black girl told us, "I could be friends with this White girl as long as we were girls first, and Black or White second. But as soon as I began to get older and realized I was a Black girl, and she a White girl, our relationship changed." Or, as Lynda Barry's fictional Edna laments in regard to her best Black girlfriend, Bonna, "Now that we're older you can bet all of that's over."

Claudia, a White college freshman, remembers the exact moment in high school when her Black girlfriend Lichelle turned on her. It was in the ninth grade. Claudia spotted Lichelle during lunchtime sitting at a table with some other Black girls. As usual, Claudia headed over to join Lichelle, but as she approached, Lichelle abruptly turned around and told Claudia that she had to sit elsewhere. For a second, Claudia just stood there with her tray, hardly able to believe that she was being rejected. For those White and Black girls who attempt to maintain cross-race friendships in the face of growing opposition from peers, even the potential for violence exists. New York's Newsday reported the story of two fourteen-year-old girlfriends in Brooklyn in 1992, one White and one Black, walking home from school together and being attacked by a group of about fifty Black teenagers. As the Black girl was being grabbed and robbed of her earrings, her attackers demanded to know, "What are you doing with the white bitch?"

Physical assaults like this are rare: verbal threats and name-calling are usually enough to drive or keep apart most teenage girls of different races. After all, what Black teenage girl wants to risk being called an UT, or Uncle Tom, because she hangs out with White girls, and what White teenage girl wants to risk being called a "nigger lover" or "wigger"-a pejorative term for Whites who act Black? At some schools, there are groups who keep other members of their race in line. Among Blacks, it is the Soul Patrollers who warn Black girls against being too studious, well spoken, or polite if they want to avoid being called "White." Among Whites, it is the Race Monitors, who warn White girls against acting too sexy, loud, cocky, or uninhibited if they want to avoid being called "Black." The result is that the majority of White girls and Black girls who may have been friends at an earlier time eventually reach a point in adolescence when they turn away from each other.

This pressure to segregate by race is fueled by a number of factors, including differences in maturation rates, in academic achievement, and in self-esteem. Even gender differences in sports participation can play a part. But the biggest reason for the split between Black teenage girls and White teenage girls, as we shall see, has to do with concerns fostered by sexual competition.

Puberty is the time when the body makes its biological transition from childhood to the adult, with the ability to reproduce. Exactly what triggers the maturation process is not fully understood, but biologists do know that, all other things being equal, a girl who weighs more will mature sexually earlier than a girl who weighs less. This has enormous racial implications, because on average Black girls weigh more than White girls. In fact, by the age of nine, more Black than White girls suffer from obesity, high blood pressure, and even lower levels of good cholesterol. Explanations for the observed race differences range from genetics to social attitudes about the value of being large, a topic examined further in the chapter on beauty and style. Whatever the reason, it is clear that early discrepancies in size between White and Black girls take on larger social meaning when it comes to the menarche, the first menstrual period.

A recent study by the American Academy of Pediatrics confirms that there is a biosocial gap in the development of White girls and Black girls. More than five thousand girls of three to twelve were examined by physicians in twenty-four different states. Findings showed that, while the age of maturation is dropping for girls of both races, Black girls are maturing even earlier than White girls. By the age of eight, only a sixth of White girls but almost half of Black girls already have begun some breast or pubic hair development. Two years later, almost all the Black girls, but only two thirds of the White girls show these same signs of physical maturity. And predictably, the Black girls on average begin to menstruate ahead of White girls.

This difference in physical maturation is one reason that children's interracial friendships are strained by puberty. A White college student, Meredith, recalled what happened to her:

My best friend growing up was Tonette, a Black girl. She lived down the street and we were together every day. Then, around fifth or sixth grade, she began to get breasts and to get bigger and taller than me. She was ready to move on and find out what boys were all about, while I still looked and probably acted like a little kid. That pretty much marked the end of our friendship. It would seem that even biology conspires to keep White and Black teenage girls apart.

Early sexual maturity is also linked to poor academic achievement, although for reasons that have nothing to do with hormones and everything to do with the exaggerated reactions of adolescent boys to girls with breasts. Given the biosocial gap in development, this means that more Black teenage girls than White teenage girls are vulnerable to academic derailment from their sudden sexual metamorphosis.

There are other reasons, unrelated to biology or boys, affecting the divergence in school academic performance between White girls and Black girls during their teens. For many White girls, good grades are equated with being "good," something that will help them be accepted, both at school and, later, in White society. But for adolescent Black girls, being labeled "smart" can lead to reprimands from the Soul Patrollers, and may thus be the cause of anxiety. While certainly not all White teenage girls strive to excel academically, nor do all Black teenage girls avoid academic success, there is again a race difference in the proportions of those who opt to become "schoolgirls" and those who aim to be "homegirls."

The study of what actually happens to girls as they make the difficult transition into womanhood was long ignored in the male-dominated field of psychology. But in 1992, the special nature of girls' adolescent development was finally addressed in Meeting at the Crossroads: Women's Psychology and Girls' Development, by Harvard psychologists Lyn Mikel Brown and Carol Gilligan. Their research took them to the Laurel School, a private day school for predominantly White middle- and upper-class girls in Cleveland, Ohio. For five years, Brown and Gilligan had observed and interviewed girls from seven and eight years of age up to fifteen and sixteen about their changing attitudes on sexual morality, politics, and violence. Among the major findings were that the confidence and moral clarity exhibited by girls during middle to late childhood gave way to a chorus of "I don't knows" by the time these girls hit adolescence. It was as though the confidence and integrity the girls established naturally when they were younger had to be compromised as they became older in order to preserve their relationships with others. Sadly, Brown and Gilligan noted, it was often the adult women in these girls' lives who served as role models for this journey into silence, as they subtly instructed the girls on the value of being passive and pleasing, behavior that reinforces and maintains traditional male hierarchy and dominance in society at large.

However, the loss of voice observed by Brown and Gilligan at the Laurel School appears to reflect a uniquely White middle-class notion of femininity -one that dates back at least as far as Victorian England. As journalist Peggy Orenstein states in her book SchoolGirls, "the model of European femininity, grounded as it is in delicacy, innocence, and an idealized helplessness-has largely been unavailable to Black women."

The reason European femininity has been largely unavailable to Black women has much to do with confounding issues of class. Economically disadvantaged Black girls are not raised with the expectation that one day their Prince Charming will come and rescue them. In fact, according to 1992 U.S. census data, 54 percent of all Black children under the age of eighteen live with mothers only, compared with i8 percent of comparably aged White children. While there are many reasons for concern about the lack of stable two-parent families on children's development, one positive consequence for daughters raised by single mothers is that they are more likely to be told to be self-reliant than are the daughters of more middle-class families with wage-earning fathers present.

A report entitled "Shortchanging Girls, Shortchanging America," released in 1991 by the American Association of University Women, provides empirical evidence that Black teenage girls do often feel better about themselves than White teenage girls. Approximately three thousand girls and boys, ages nine to fifteen, across the country were interviewed for the impact of gender and race on self-confidence, academic interest, and career goals. Among the study's major findings were that the self-esteem level of most girls is significantly lower than that of most boys, that the self-esteem of girls steadily declines as they move through the educational system, and that the self-esteem of White girls relative to Black girls drops even faster. At the elementary school level, only 55 percent of the White girls and 65 percent of Black girls report being happy with themselves. By high school, a mere 22 percent of the White girls, but 58 percent of Black girls, continue to be happy with the way they are. According to Dr. Janie Victoria Ward, a leading authority on African American girls and a consultant to the project, "There is high self-esteem among black girls because black culture emphasizes independence and assertiveness. But academic self-esteem is low. There's a decline in academic pride. Black girls are not relying on schools to give them positive images of themselves."

For some adolescent Black girls, doing well in school can actually make them feel worse about themselves. Signithia Fordham, a Rutgers
University professor, has been exploring the ways academic achievement can threaten a Black girl's sense of self, both culturally and sexually. Fordham believes that smart Black girls are forced 'to adopt one of two demeanors at school: they can become silent, in effect acting like those docile White girls whom the teachers seem to adore, or they can become one of "those loud Black girls," as Fordham calls them, who always mouth off, crack jokes, and disrupt class. While the first strategy allows a Black girl to pursue academic excellence, she does so at the risk of social rejection and hostile accusations from other Black students that she is "acting White." The second strategy thus holds much appeal for a smart Black girl, as she is better able to preserve her popularity with her Black peers, albeit at the risk of getting poorer grades, being suspended, or even dropping out. But by becoming one of "those loud Black girls," she can avoid, in Fordham's words, "the perceived 'nothingness' of White middle-class notions of womanhood and femininity."

Among the smart but "loud" Black girls Fordham observed and interviewed at a high school in Washington, D.C., was Rita. Because she scored well on her Practice Scholastic Achievement Tests (PSATs), Rita's teachers encouraged her to write a strong, upbeat essay to send with her college applications. Most of the female students who had similarly earned high PSAT scores complied with this request, but Rita resisted. To the shock and disappointment of her teachers, she wrote a rather morbid essay about the value of death and dying. In analyzing Rita's behavior, Fordham notes "The 'slam dunking' part of her persona that propels her to the margins of good behavior, without actually forcing her into the realm of bad behavior, makes ,shrinking lilies' out of most adults who interact with her or, alternatively, motivates them to avoid contact with her, if that is an option." For Rita, however, the strategy worked. She got into the college of her choice and did so without provoking accusations of "acting White."

The bold and brassy behavior of some adolescent Black girls is in sharp contrast to the obedient and restrained demeanor of the mostly middle-class White students Brown and Gilligan observed. When Peggy Orenstein compared the classroom behavior of girls at a predominantly White middle-class school outside San Francisco with that of girls in a predominantly Black working-class school in Northern California, she too noticed a distinct difference. Becca, a White girl with curved shoulders, thin legs, and homestreaked Sun-In hair, and April, a Black girl with a broad build, dark skin, and reddish, straightened hair, showed some of the differences in personality and style. When she was interviewed by Orenstein, Becca admitted that she would never speak up in class "unless I'm really, really sure of an answer, and sometimes not even then," while April was observed to raise her hand frequently and shout out answers to questions, even though she was nearly always wrong.

Unfortunately, one consequence of the greater confidence of many smart Black girls is that their "bossiness" may get them into trouble with teachers and school authorities, and even cause them to drop out of school. A study conducted by New York's Education Department confirms that African American teenage girls get suspended at a rate three times that of White girls. And another study, conducted in Chicago, found that 44 percent of Black girls dropped out of high school, compared with only 16 percent of White girls. While prejudice toward African Americans is certainly a contributing factor to these race differences in suspension and dropout rates, attitudes toward the value of education also play a role.

By senior year, the cumulative effects of some of these cultural differences take their toll. White girls significantly outperform Black girls on their Scholastic Achievement Tests (SATs). Of a possible top score of 800 on each of the two sections, White girls in 1994 earned an average Of 441 on the verbal component and 475 on the math, while Black girls earned an average Of 354 on the verbal and 381 on the math. Since SAT scores are supposed to correlate with grades and be predictive of classroom performance, one would think that White girls could claim greater confidence in school than Black girls. However, again the evidence suggests otherwise. Black females' confidence in school is closer to that of White males than it is to that of White females.

That Black girls act more confident in school than White girls, when it is White girls who academically outperform Black girls, would be expected to create a strange dynamic between them. But in fact it rarely does, because White girls and Black girls do not compare themselves with one another. Instead, White girls compare themselves with White boys, whose academic achievement starts to soar in high school. As a result, White girls end up concluding that they aren't as smart. They know that White boys typically outscore them on both sections of the SATs and that a great deal of emphasis is placed on SAT scores as an indicator of raw intelligence. In contrast, Black girls compare their academic accomplishments with those of Black boys, and therefore may conclude that they are 'just as smart, if not smarter, than the guys. Black teenage girls on average outscore Black teenage boys on the verbal, if not the math, SAT: the combined score for Black boys is only eighteen points higher than it is for Black girls.

Cultural differences, too, can affect self-esteem. White parents expect more academically from sons than from daughters-after all, White boys are future members of the highest paid subgroup in America. In contrast, African American parents expect roughly the same, if not more, from daughters as from sons.

Another reason for the observed lack of self-esteem among middle-class White girls has to do with negative attitudes about such girls boasting of their accomplishments. But working-class Black girls are often encouraged to do just that. Also, African American teenage girls view criticism not as stemming from personal shortcomings but as evidence of racism, so such criticism is likely to be dismissed. White girls lack this buffer, and conclude that any shortcomings in their academic performance are theirs and theirs alone.

The issue of self-esteem can be a source of conflict between White girls and Black girls, especially at private preparatory schools. At Wexler, for example, a school in the North for academically accelerated sixth- to twelfth-graders, Black girls complained that the White girls acted conceited about their school work and sometimes flaunted their grades as a way to humiliate the Black students. Social psychologist Janet Schofield, who interviewed students at Wexler Middle School, found that levels of conflict were higher between the girls than between the boys at the school. The teaching staff agreed. A White teacher, Ms. Engle, said, "I think the boys react better than the girls. Girls can be very catty and they want to have their own friends and that's it . . . The girls seem to stick to themselves [within each racial group] more." A Black teacher, Ms. Partridge, noted, "Girls are more clannish than boys and they tend to hold on to their own little groups . . . It's kind of hard to break into a circle that's been going on for a year [or more]." She added, "Boys discuss sports and they tend to have more to talk about [cross-racially] than we [females] do."

The mention of sports is significant. Just as at the elementary school level, teenage boys and girls who participate in sports have an advantage over others in establishing and maintaining interracial relationships. During adolescence, however, far more boys than girls continue in sports. The results of a recent major survey sponsored by Wilson Sporting Goods showed that 87 percent of seven- to ten-year-old girls were involved in some form of athletic activity. In fact, roughly half of all girls report that they were tomboys when growing up, suggesting that this is a fairly "normal" phase of girls' development. But athleticism in girls dramatically declines after puberty. Among fifteen- to eighteen-year-old girls, 75 percent in the Wilson survey stated that they no longer participated in sports of any kind. Furthermore, the survey found that Black girls drop out of sports even faster than White girls.

A number of factors contribute to this. One is the cultural attitudes toward what the boys think. Compared with White girls, Black girls in the Wilson survey were twice as likely to say that "boys make fun of girls who play sports." Another factor is financial. Sports activities are expensive, and while economically disadvantaged parents may be willing to invest their dollars in athletics for their sons in the hope of athletic scholarships or a professional sports career, they are far less likely to spend money on an equally gifted daughter. After all, her chances of becoming a well-paid professional are slim to none. Transportation is also a hindrance. Mothers who are poor and without a car are not available to chauffeur a child to and from the many practices and meets that are scheduled. Again, sacrifices are less likely to be made for a daughter. Thus, issues of demographics and sexual inequality combine to make Black girls less active in sports than White girls.

Even when Black girls and White girls are involved in sports, there are differences in which sports they choose. As Willye White, a five-time Olympian and 1956 long-jump silver medalist and consultant on the Wilson survey, notes, "You take poorer kids, they'll tend to excel in poverty sports - volleyball, basketball, track and field. But the suburban black kid will have the same interest in the same sports as white kids." Since more White families than Black families live in the suburbs, they have greater exposure to tennis, swimming, soccer, ice skating, and gymnastics. More important, even when Black and White teenage girls participate in the same sports, the effect of the activity on interracial friendships is not the same as it is for boys. Boys are encouraged to be athletic and strong, and they may come to admire each other for these very qualities. But in junior high and high school, girls gain status from their looks and social popularity, not from their ability to shoot hoops or serve an ace in tennis. As Thorne notes in Gender Play:

Athletics provides a continuous arena where at least some boys can perform and gain status as they move from primary through secondary schooling. But for many girls, appearance and relationships with boys begin to take primacy over other activities.

Because judgments of beauty are so subjective, accusations of racism over the election of homecoming queen and her court are perhaps inevitable. Tensions at some schools have run so high that policies have had to be implemented to ease them. At Hahnville High School, in Louisiana, a quota of three Black girls and seven White girls has been in effect for members of the homecoming court since 1975. These numbers reflect the ratios in the student body, which is approximately 70 percent White and 30 percent Black; the policy was originally established to ensure the representative presence of at least some Black girls on the court. Recently, though, Black students have become aware that the policy sometimes works against them.

In 1986, Black students and parents filed a complaint after discovering that several Black girls had been denied a place on the court, even though they had received more votes than some of the White girls who did make it.

Another high school, in Brownsville, Tennessee, following a court-ordered merger in 1970 Of two segregated schools, also established a policy for electing homecoming queen. Concerned that a Black girl, in the face of stiff competition from White girls, might never be selected queen at the newly merged school, administrators announced the title would alternate from year to year between a Black girl and a White girl. Although the rule was originally designed as a measure of fairness for Black girls, it has become apparent that during the "off" years, Black girls are receiving more votes but having to settle for the court's maid of honor. (The school's principal and the county superintendent maintain that their method must be working, because there have been no race riots over the issue.)

While rigid policies like these are far from widespread, they say much about issues of competition-and the institutionalization of female beauty in high school. Similar policies have not been enacted for the annual election of class president, editor of the school paper, or captain of any of the varsity sports teams. But one can argue that these positions are presumably based more on ability than on subjective considerations like beauty.

Racial tensions similarly run high over the annual selection of cheerleaders. While the ability to jump, dance, and sing is important, a girl must also be deemed pretty. Appearance matters in another way, as well. At many racially integrated schools, even schools that are largely White, most of the boys on the two big varsity teams, basketball and football, are Black. Should the cheerleading squad reflect the racial makeup of the school as a whole or of the team for which the girls are cheering? Is it "right" for a group of White girls to be cheering on to victory a group of Black boys? Hanley J. Norment, the vice president for programs of Washington State's Montgomery County NAACP, believes that the way in which high schools in his county select members of the cheerleading squad is unfair to some of the Black girls who try out. He suspects that hair texture has something to do with this. If a Black girl's hair doesn't swing about like the White girls' hair, her chances of being selected are considerably reduced.

At the same time, some White cheerleaders resent what they call "affirmative action" positions on cheerleading squads. At schools where a certain number of Black girls, regardless of talent, have to be on the squad, White girls who are technically better may be sometimes left off. Patty, the White captain of a cheerleading squad at a largely White school in the South, complained:

Hip-hop has it origins in urban Black rap music, but has since come to embrace a way of dressing-baggy clothes, gold jewelry, and hats turned backwards- a way of greeting- "Yo, homegirl, what's happening?"-as well as styles of hair (for boys, razor cuts and short dreads; for girls, tiny braids covering the head). While imitation may be the highest form of flattery, African American teens often do not appreciate the sight of White teens appropriating Black culture. Once again, the element of competition may drive Black and White teens apart. White girls who adopt hip-hop fashion have been known to incite violence from Black girls, who feel their very identity and culture are being stolen. At North Newton Junior-Senior High in Indiana, thirteen-year-old Michelle Kegley was punched in the face by a Black student in 1993 because she wore baggy hip-hop clothes and styled her hair in tiny braids. Another White student, Andrea Van Winkle, dressed similarly and was harassed for "acting Black"; she was called a "wigger " Although in both cases the physical attacks were made by Black boys, the Black girls did nothing to defend the two girls and, in fact, egged the boys on.

Such extreme negative reactions to their way of dressing and wearing their hair are confusing to White girls, who think they deserve credit, not blame, for dressing in race-friendly ways. Other White girls don't feel that Blacks are justified in claiming cultural property rights to a particular fashion. As Melissa from Detroit put it:

I get so tired of Black girls accusing me of acting Black. Yeah, I
wear gold hoop earrings. I wear oversized clothes. I can even dance.  But it's more about being urban than Black. It's the whole MTV thing.

This jealousy over perceived encroachments is but one example of how Black and White girls end up in competition, exacerbating the division between them. There is also an element of sexual jealousy in the anger felt toward White girls for dressing "Black." While some Black girls feel that in such traditional endeavors as running for homecoming queen, they may well be, in Abbott's words, "outgunned in the belle department," no Black girl wants to be "outgunned" when it comes to hip-hop styles. They may perceive such White girls as trying to steal away Black guys. This fear is clear in the comment of a New Jersey Black teen named Tara:

But for many African American teenage girls, the threat of White girls stealing the affections of Black boys is an ever-present danger. Conditioned by our cultural definitions of feminine beauty, it isn't surprising that Black teenage boys are attracted to White girls to some degree. In fact, for some Black boys, it is a rite of passage to see how far they can get with a White girl. But to Black teenage girls witnessing such cross-race flirtations, it is a painful reminder that White girls have the looks that our larger society says are beautiful. Instead of getting angry at the guys, though, most African American teenage girls take it out on White girls, especially the prettiest ones. After all, less attractive White girls are less of a threat.  When we asked a group of Black teenage girls at a middle school in Joliet, Illinois, what they thought of White girls, one, named Renee, said, "I can't stand them 'cause they're always flinging their damn hair all over the place, thinking their shit don't stink. I wanna walk up to them and slap their little pug noses off." Her friends agreed, offering such comments as: "They always want to date Black guys, especially the basketball players," and "They think they are so much prettier than Black girls," and "They think they can get anything they want because their Daddy will give it to them."

When we asked the White girls at the same school what they thought of Black girls, we heard fear. A seventh-grader named Jennifer whispered, "I'm scared to death of them! Black girls are so tomboyish and are always picking a fight with me. I don't know why they want to be so mean all the time." Another admitted to trying to become teacher's pet for protection. When the Black girls were told what the White girls had said, they acted pleased. "Just drop Miss Priss off in my neighborhood," Renee said. "She'll see why we're so mean." Her friends added, "We'll put the fear in her that her mamma never did."

While by no means universal, the deep-seated rage of some Black teenage girls clearly produces intense anxiety in many White girls, some of whom devise strategies to protect themselves. One strategy is to exchange academic assistance for physical protection. A White girl named Sally at the Wexler School explained, "You get exposed to a lot of black people who are trying to act tough. You have to know a lot of people. You have to get yourself a black friend. You just have to be nice and show you care a lot. You also have to take your time to help them."

But the most common strategy seems to be avoidance. This was employed by a White teenager, Tru Love, when she attended a predominantly Black school in Detroit. In an article for Ebony magazine, Love noted that the Black boys at school were often protective of her, but when it came to the Black girls, she tried to hide from them. This wasn't always possible, though. Love admitted that she was deathly afraid of going into the bathroom . . . There was always a gang of unfriendly girls hanging out. They used to say thing like, 'What are you looking at, White girl? Why don't you go back where you came from?' I thought for sure they were going to jump me and pound my skinny butt. There were some things the guys couldn't help me with. In the bathroom, I was on my own.

Another woman, Lana, a White student at a predominantly Black inner city Northern school during the late sixties, remembers being very careful not to get to school too early, lest she get beaten up by Black girls. One day she got caught. I was coming up the school steps, and there, waiting for me, was a gang of Black girls. I started yelling, 'I don't wanna fight. Leave me alone,' but they shoved and pulled my hair anyway. But I'm not racist,
and I never had any problems with the Black guys. In fact, I loved to dance with them at parties.

Sandra T., who grew up in the North but moved to Florida during the early seventies, recalled how she learned the hard way to avoid Black girls. Sandra remembers a day when she was walking home from eighth grade and suddenly heard a Black girl taunting her: "You're an ugly White bitch. You think you're something special, but you're just an ugly White bitch." Sandra flipped the girl the bird, and the next thing she knew her hair was being pulled and she was socked hard in the stomach. Sandra said, "She didn't stop beating me until I started screaming 'I give up, I give up.' " She added:

After that, I became so frightened of Black girls that I actually developed an intense phobia of them. I became afraid to go outside for fear one might be around. I never feared the Black boys, though, because they all thought that I was cute.