First grade was an eye-opener to me because my class was about 50% African-American and I had classmates named Dwight Eisenhower Wong, and Tanesha and Keisha, and a host of other names that I remember after all of these years. I’d never seen these kids in my town, not at the swimming pool where my brothers and I spent our summers, not on the streets, not in the parks and not in the drug stores. This was the time before civil rights, and this was a group not seen, let alone heard, by the half of the town where I lived. Once, when leaving town on a car trip, our family sedan drove through their neighborhood that was literally on the other side of the tracks—shoddy, poorly made houses in the vaguely gray and industrial looking section. They were out of sight, out of mind, except at school.

My classmates were fascinated with my soft, blond hair, and would stand behind me, stroking it, so I'd go home every day with my hair greasy from their eager hands. They fought over who got to be behind me when we lined up. And we were always lining up, for the cafeteria, for gym, for whatever. The first graders told me that one angry young boy had a crush on me, and maybe that accounted for why he threw the basketball to hit me, or then again, maybe not. Maybe he had every right to be angry living on the other side of the tracks.

I'm a person who's always been uncomfortable with privileges that I didn't earn and uncomfortable seeing others denied those same privileges by accidents of birth. I've wrestled with these questions my entire life. To me, The WIP is about addressing those questions and shining a light on those areas of town, and areas of life, that are not examined—the unseen and unheard.

To this end, I dedicate my contributions to the African-Americans in my first grade class who changed my world view.