No Niggers Allowed (Two innocent stories about race)

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Story One
by Keith Lowell Jensen

I was seven years old. I was playing with my brother Erick in the backyard. This was 1979. Erick was, and is four years older than me. The neighborhood we grew up in was made up of about 50% Mexicans, 40% Whites and a sprinkling of Japanese, Samoan, and assorted other folk. There were two black families that I knew of, so when we saw an afro tall enough to clear our back wall go cruising by we knew that Duane was beneath it.

"Hey Keith" Erick whispered to me. "Go tell Duane that there are no niggers allowed in our backyard." My brother wasn't (and isn't) a racist, but he loved to stir shit up. I didn't know what a nigger was, but figured Duane should know that we had a spot free of them.

I climbed the fence and called out to Duane, "Hey Duane."

"What's up, Keith?" Duane answered. He was about the same age as Erick and had always treated me like I was his younger brother.

"There's no niggers allowed in our backyard." I told him.

"Is that right?" he asked, seeming to find this information comforting. "Say, is Erick back there with you?"

"Yup." Surely this was okay, as Erick couldn't possible be a nigger.

"Say Keith, you mind if I come back?"

Of course I didn't. I hopped down and opened the gate for Duane who thanked me and then calmly walked over to Erick who he began, methodically, to beat the crap out of.

I ran into the house where my mom was hosting a Parent Teacher Association meeting, a real rainbow gathering. I was almost in tears as I shouted the news to my mom. "Mom, mom, I think Erick's a nigger." I alarmed her, full of panic.

Mom was cool. She knelt down to me in front of many calm brown faces and a few shocked and worried white ones. She asked me if I knew what the word nigger meant. I did not. "It's a horrible word used to hurt black people, and if you love Duane and Richey and Lonnie you never want to use that word again. No you go play and tell your brother I'd like to see him."

It dawned on me then what Erick had put me up to. I ventured back into the backyard and took a seat with a good view of Duane jumping up and down on my brothers head.

Story Two
by Keith Lowell Jensen

My little brother James moved in with me in Sacramento. This was his first experience having his own place.

We didn't live in the best neighborhood but we got along pretty good. I brought a couple of beers over to the quiet Mexican man who lived next door to us, just to say hello. He was a cool mellow guy who said he couldn't come to our parties because his wife saw too many pretty girls going into our place. I laughed and hanging out with Art became a tradition.

James congratulated me on making friends with the king pin of the drug dealers that operated in our neighborhood. I couldn't believe it. Drug dealers don't have cute little wives who won't let them party. My friendship with Art meant the rest of the neighborhood welcomed us. We were part of a neighborhood watch program. They would watch each other steal shit from our downstairs neighbor, but they would warn each other off of messing with us. Had our downstairs neighbor not been such a uptight prick I might've introduced him to Art and let him buy the beers for a change.

We had a lot of homeless in the neighborhood, regulars. We knew them by name and we'd put our recyclables out for them. Gene even got Christmas presents from my girlfriend and I. He was just our neighbor who lived between the houses instead of in them. He watched out for my girlfriend when she walked to work early in the morning and he helped negotiate when when she bought me a dope bike for ten bucks from a crack head. Our buddies at the local punk rock house had a guy named Ramone move onto a couch that they left on their front porch and he would keep up on all the household gossip. He would even help them work out their differences when they'd have roommate tensions.

Some of the homeless were not so enjoyable. Like the guy who took off all his cloths, jumped in the lake and never came back up. Or the lady who came through one day with an out of proportion puppy that she was feeding beer and rotten milk to.

Little brother James decided to help out the dog. "Hey lady you can't be feeding that dog that shit."

"You gonna buy him something better." she asked.

"He aint my dog."

"Sure he is. Gimme ten dollars."

"No."

"Then shut up, and mind your own business." She went back to feeding the dog beer.

James didn't want to get in a fight with an old black lady. No matter how many beers I drank with the drug king, this would not fly. "Okay look, I'll give you five bucks, you give me the dog." he offered. The deal was made. The dog's name, the lady about to buy a five-dollar-rock informed James, was Indo.

I almost killed my brother. Indo sucked. Not only was his head way too big for his body, Indo crapped all over our house, wouldn't come when called, shredded the furniture and farted something awful. James worked and worked on teaching that dog something, anything. He walked it, and pet it and loved it, and Indo was happy. James and I were not.

One day James is walking Indo in the park across from our house and Indo gets loose. James chases him but Indo thinks it's a game and keeps running getting dangerously close to the street. James starts calling him. "Indo, come here. C'mon Indo." but Indo gets further and further away. "INDO!"

Two black pre-teens ask James why he's yelling Indo in the park, figuring this is not a smart way to find someone selling weed. "I'm calling my dog." he explains.

"That dog?" they ask. "That's our old dog. His name aint Indo."

"Well what's his name?"

"His name nigger." they answer.

"I CAN'T STAND IN THE PARK YELLING NIGGER!" James shouts, catching the attention of the crowd of guys who sit next to the basketball courts all day holding basketballs in their hands and drinking forties.

"We'll get him." and they start calling "Nigger" and Nigger comes running and happily jumps in their arms. They wrestle with him and play tag and then turn him over to James.

"Hey, if he's your dog you can take him." James offers.

"Hell no. That dog stinks."

James brings the dog upstairs. Weeks of frustration have taken their toll and James' eyes are looking moist.

"What's wrong dude?" I ask.

And James cries, "My Dog's Name is nigger!"




PS: The dog now lives with our friend Caroline. He still ugly as hell. His name is now JoJo the Dog Faced Boy.