The partial story of a meeting

White bi male. 6'0". 21. from Louisville, KY. Physics major. Operations manager for OSCA. He comes from an upper-middle class family. He was raised in a single-parent household. In his hometown, he has had "faggot" yelled at him from passing cars.

Asian/Hispanic/White bi female. 5'4". 19. from Seattle, WA. Politics major. Dining Loose Ends Coordinator for Kosher-Halal co-op. She comes from an upper middle class family. In Southeast Alaska she was followed around a one room shop as she browsed. In Utah she was stopped abruptly in a grocery store and asked if she spoke English. In her hometown she has had pseudo-Japanese yelled at her from passing cars.

This is the story of how these two people's paths met.

----

One evening in Wilder, the two operations managers were facilitating a meeting with the DLECs. In typical OSCA style, check-in took 45 minutes. Everyone was sitting in a small circle with food in the middle. There, the two are together. She is sitting on a couch directly across from him, dying to get out of this meeting. He is sitting in a chair, thinking of all he has to do.

During a pause in the meeting, he turns to her - she sees a soft, almost sweet expression on his face - as if he is talking to someone's little girl. He asks quietly, "Would you like to check in for Third World now?"

I paused briefly and inhaled the meaning of his words. I have never been so aware of the color of my skin as I was at that moment. I was in a room full of white people and I wasn't white. And I wasn't prepared. I have walked around with this face for so long, not knowing what it means. I am the daughter of my mother and father and I would never deny that, but sometimes I'm just lost to it. At that moment, I didn't think. I didn't even understand what he said.

She has a dumbfounded "what did he just say?" look on her face. There is a brief pause.

I let my mouth go - "Actually, I'm from Kosher."

There is a collective gasp in the room. It was almost as if every individual in the room except for her inhaled the implication of her words, and dropped their jaws.

I was dumbfounded. I'm supposed to be facilitating this. All of a sudden, I was vividly aware of the color of my skin. I didn't know what to say. I had to realize that those words came from my mouth, and yet at the time, I couldn't really understand how they could have. Their implication diffused outwards, touching both of us, and our eyes came together. I needed to say something to her. Anything. But I had no words in my head, except the broken record, skipping over and over again, of "I don't know what to say, I don't know what to say . . ."

For a moment, there was an exposed path between the two. She felt trapped and now wanted even more to get out of the room. And so she checked-in, mouth running so as not to have to talk or be spoken to again. Information poured out of her, everything she could think of - how her co-op was running, what they had been doing - hoping the group would be satisfied. She concluded by stating loudly that she had to leave. Through out this, she tried to act as if nothing had happened. The moment had passed. The tide of words had rushed in and flooded it. The two were left isolated.

I slammed out the back door of Wilder practically running. I'm going back to my dorm and I'm finally going to get some shit done. Came home and called a friend, we talked about the test we were cramming for - I didn't make any sense on the phone, I think I said good luck. I put down the phone and that's when I realized that I was charged, electric, pissed. I got out my notes and didn't read them. stared and stared and ripped my books out of my bag and threw them on the bed, paced around,. found a chair and left it as soon as I sat down. and then sat down again. and I couldn't stop myself from taking the scene apart in my head - what he said, what I said, how we looked and - over and over - telling myself no, that now I was going to do my fucking work and not fail this class because that's what I'm - but then deconstructing the scene - being back in it like an acting class where they take you through it again and again until it's your mother dying in the street and you cry because you believe it. Noiselessly and painfully I let it go - I cried about it.

The rest of the meeting went quickly, but not nearly as fast as I wanted it to. Everyone left. I felt dirty, disgusting. Transformed into an object of my own hate. What could I do now? Within myself, I looked over and over again at my intentions, and my carelessness, and her hurt. At that moment, I felt like I never wanted to speak again for fear that something stupid and hurtful would fall out. It all welled up within me, her words, mine; and combined into a feeling of total helplessness. I thought that I was conscious of my words and the thoughts behind them, but from this it seemed that I wasn't, and this was completely unacceptable to me. I felt that the chances of resolution were slim- after all, we had just met there, and now she would probably never want to talk to me again. I couldn't think about it anymore - so I let it go.

-----

We spent time apart telling this story to those we thought would understand. We both needed to take some of the sting out of what happened in order to bring the story into focus for ourselves. After we did this, we could meet each other as individuals, with faces. About ten days later, we met at Kosher for lunch and talked about all the goofy stuff that everyone normally talks about - majors, hometowns, family lives. We left the subject of our first meeting fairly quickly.

And we started to build the story. We started from the understanding that we were both "right." We weren't trying to catch each other in a lie. While typing the story, each of us would spend time talking about our feelings while the other mapped those feelings onto a constantly evolving, mutually-understood framework. We did this by literally trading places - one would type and interpret while the other would sit and explore the story. We were talking about how it felt for both of us. We accepted that it was painful. And that we had the power to change it from poison into medicine.

This entire process has been a cathartic one. We did it, without big funny words or contrived processes; sharing as individuals. The abstract ideals of "conflict resolution" and "tolerance" must be put into action in our daily lives. We did this, face to face, without any "theory." It has been a source of hope. We can bring it out. We can talk about it.

Summer had to tell it. Devin had to tell it. We had to tell it to each other. And now we're telling it to you.