Cookies n' Cream

Back when I was in middle school, I had gone to camp as many kids do. It's definitely a great experience, the whole camp lifestyle. You really can't get it anywhere else, being that adults tend to get full-time jobs and then babies.

I had gone to a Christian camp at my parents' recommendations and advice. I was devout fundamentalist Christian at the time and I didn't care that much about going to a Christian camp, even though I had wanted to go to a secular one-- a normal one.

When we all settled down at the camp and sat around the tables. We had to tell everyone our names and our favorite ice cream. It was an interesting idea and a great ice breaker. Now, this was in Pennsylvania and most of the people who went there were generally born and raised from that region. It was in order of seating. The white girls started out by choosing vanilla. The black girls would pick cookies n' cream exclusively. They really loved it. Some of the white girls would pick mint chocolate chip, but when it came down to the final numbers, it became a sort of competition. The white girls began to choose vanilla. One white girl said she sometimes liked soft serve, but that she likes vanilla as well, making the numbers for vanilla higher. The guys for the most part weren't in on it. Vanilla, vanilla, cookies n' cream, cookies n' cream, vanilla, and it would go on. And finally it came down to me and nobody knew what I would pick. I was Asian and they did not know what ice cream Asians liked. Green tea ice cream? All eyes stared at me. I chose cookies n' cream. A victory for the black girls. They shouted and cheered for cookies n' cream. They had won. And the white girls had lost.

I could've chosen cookie dough. I loved that too. But I had always loved cookies n' cream, as did my family. It was our favorite ice cream and we had tried everything.

The reason I was last was not by chance. We had to sit in alphabetical order by our first names. This was the reason for the intermingling of vanillas and cookies n' creams. This was also the reason I was last. My first name starts with a Y.

One thing I did not know, was that I had chosen my side. The white girls decided that I wasn't one of them and the black girls accepted me like their long lost friend.

This should have been an eye-opening lesson on racism, but instead, I did not see it, until years later. Having been raised in a liberal town and taught in a highly liberal, politically correct public school, I became indoctrinated into believing that there were no racial differences and that racism wasn't as rampant in the liberal states as in those damned backwards southern states. It's a different form of racism. That much is true. But it is still racism. You either get the loud, offensive racism with racial slurs shouted at people for no reason or you get the hidden racism where people do discriminate against you, but they never admit to it and worse, they believe themselves to be not racist at all. You cannot fight the second one because you have no proof. The first type you can, because it's obvious to everyone.