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[tow3rofbabble]

The World’s Worst Player

March 26, 2025

Picture this: You’re 22, fresh out of college, absolutely fumbling your way through every interview; the job market might as well have told you to tear up your $80,000 a year degree and every single day feels like the physical embodiment of molasses. Out of nowhere, you get a call from your old high school saying that they need a leave replacement and you’re quick to jump on the opportunity (completely forgetting what it’s like to BE in high school, let in a role of authority at that), and next thing you know, the original teacher isn’t coming back, you’re a full-time teacher and you’re exactly where you were 4 years ago except, now you’re the one in charge. 

Honestly, it doesn’t sound that terrible; I mean, I’m making money, I’m putting my “art degree’, as I like to jokingly call it, to use and I get to shape the great minds of our future! I think this is okay, it’s steady and predictable; it fits my mildly type-A personality and I get to spend every single day talking about things, I would argue, I actually know about. Granted, I haven’t taken 9th grade English since, well, 9th grade, and don’t even ask me what the key plot points of “Of Mice and Men” are or how the hell you explain literary devices in the most bare-bones way known to men to a group of kids who genuinely couldn't care less about the role of duality in Romeo and Juliet; however, in the simplest terms, this is cool. Direct deposit hits, I live at home, and my commute is all of 13 minutes on days when I hit traffic, so, what’s the real issue? 

I’ll tell you what the real issue is: I am, once again, in a space where it feels like I’m the only. Now, you may be asking yourself: the only what?

I feel like I’m the only black person, which is weird because I definitely have two other black coworkers, one of which is my mother, but something about it still feels incredibly lonely. It definitely has something to do with age, in my opinion. Ever since I saw Kendrick’s SuperBowl Halftime Performance, I’ve been feeling a lot like Samuel L. Jackson’s line: “Too loud, too ghetto, too reckless… Do you really know how to play the game?”

I can’t help but think, no, I definitely don’t know how to play the game and I think that is what is so isolating about this experience; I find that older black people know how to play “the game,” they don’t really rock the boat, and they know when to talk and when to be silent. That’s something that I’m personally really struggling with; no one talks about how hard it is to bite your tongue in the workforce and know when exactly to be the Huey Newton of the group and when to just shut up and turn the other cheek. It’s an odd balance, and to be fair, my balance has always been a bit off center. I think it’s making me way less palatable, and I think it’s a total 360 from how people used to perceive me. Let me establish a little context:

I was totally the “token negro” for my all-white, private, Catholic school; realistically, they could not get enough of me. They quite literally still use my high school photos in their promo and used to ask me to come and speak at the school up until my senior year of college. I was like their badge of honor: Whoooooo-weeeeee, look at what we done here with this negro! Got her into an Ivy League and everything!

Like yeah, that’s cool, it wasn't like I worked my ass off to get to where I am today, but it’s fine: just take the credit. 

Now, here I am, back 4 years later and a lot of soul-searching and immersing myself in pro-black culture, I am this place’s (and the people that inhabit it) worst nightmare, and honestly, some part of me absolutely revels in the thought. However, back to the point of this entire story, I feel like this has led to some more than awkward encounters that really showcase how I do NOT know how to play the game. 

For example, I met with a parent recently, black kid’s parent, and I thought the interaction went great! We easily bonded over both being Haitian, and I completely understood every concern she was expressing; a lot of things went unsaid because there was already a very mutual understanding. Some things don’t have to be said out loud in order for the person to understand what you mean, remember that. To make a long story short, her son is a basketball star; I mean, kid is an absolute phenom, definitely has the potential to go D1 and I truly wouldn’t be shocked if he went pro one day. She was voicing how you have to know more than how to dribble a ball, you have to show them you’re well-rounded and I told her that’s pretty much the same advice I always give him. 

I tell him: Dude, it’s awesome that you’re such a good player, and I have no doubt that you’ll get signed, but what’s going to happen when they hand you the contract and you don’t have a clue what the hell it’s saying. Signing away your life to god knows what, and they’re going to pull a fast one on you because of course, you don’t know what the contract means. That’s what they expect from you. You’re there to dribble a ball, dunk, and have some corny, albeit probably catchy, hand gesture that you do every time you score; they don’t want you to have intellect and it doesn’t even matter if you do. Harder for them to screw you over, anyways. 

Now, I can acknowledge that is an incredibly reductionist take of the NBA and professional sports in general, but you get what I mean; it’s a trope, the dumb athlete. Regardless, after my conversation, I returned to my faux-office space, which is just an over-glorified closet that I share with 4 other people, and was immediately asked by my old, and truthfully possibly mildly senile, white coworker how the meeting went. Now, this is regular behavior; if you must know, teachers love to gossip, it’s their favorite thing to do, however, this particular coworker and I have some history.

As I told you, this is my old high school and my freshman year, I had an incident where this coworker (at the time, my teacher) hit me with the craziest micro-aggression I had ever experienced and did it in front of the entire class; it definitely felt like it was meant to embarrass me, and yeah, it’s been easily 9 years since that happened, but I’m still on edge with her. I told her a vague description of the meeting and basically said that the mom just wanted to make sure her son wouldn’t slip through the cracks and I fully understood that: black athlete in a PWI? Don’t worry, girl, I absolutely got you. 

Well, this coworker replied with, “Well, he’s not a good student anyways. That’s what they all do. Just dribble a ball, anyways.”

Excuse me? 

My face couldn’t even hide my absolute confusion and disgust at her statement, truthfully, I wanted to be like. “What the hell are you talking about?” What does that even mean? And who in the world is this ‘other’, this ‘they’, that you have so much to say about? Obviously, she meant black people; she’s incredibly vocal on her political stances and racial ideology, but what really had me thrown for an absolute loop was, what the absolute fuck about me says that I would subscribe to this? 

So, I stared at her for a second, an uncomfortably long stare that definitely made her shift awkwardly in her seat and asked: “What do you mean by that?”

I’ve realized the best way to address something like this isn’t to immediately snap, but rather have them explain it to you like you’re a moron; make them say out loud and explicitly say what they’re implying, let them really ruminate on what they’re saying and the implications of it. She just replied with, ‘Oh, come on. You know what I mean.’

Actually, no, I don’t.

I mean, I do, but I want you to say it. I want you to say out loud that you think that black people are dumb and are only meant to play sports and act foolishly. I want you to stand on your racist beliefs and say it with your chest and I’m not willing to let this go until you do. That’s when I realized for certain, I don’t know how to play the game. Coming to this realization was a bit heavy, but as I sit here, thinking about it over and over, I realize, why do I have to play the game by your rules? This stupid game, where I’m a palatable black person doesn’t benefit me or anyone else; it just makes ignorant people more comfortable with being a complete ass, and one thing about me? I’m not here to make anyone comfortable; I think about that little saying all the time: All I have to do is stay black and die. 

Needless to say, the conversation got real awkward after that, and I definitely heard her talking to other coworkers about me, but I just couldn’t bring myself to care. I knew that it probably wasn’t the smartest decision, and could definitely make work uncomfortable for the following days, but I just did not care. I wasn’t just going to let a comment like that slide; I wasn’t 14, and in order to be respectful, swallowing my pride and letting comments I knew, in my gut, weren’t right slide. I was there to rock the boat.

I could also, in the same vein, see my mom, shaking her head and telling me to just let it be because it wasn’t worth the headache. It wasn’t worth the uncomfortable silence that has filled our makeshift office; it wasn’t worth the obviously dirty looks her ‘friends,’ give me; it wasn’t worth singling myself out. But to me, it was worth it; it’s all worth it because I am not your token negro, I’m not “one of the good ones.” I’m not one to let shit slide. 

Existing in these predominantly white spaces is, truly, not for the weak and I think just teaches black people to make themselves small, to not rock the boat, and to play the game properly. However, it’s way more nuanced than that, and I’ve decided that my job, perhaps my purpose, is to take up as much room as possible. I’m not here to shrink myself to make space for you; I’m here to take up just as much space as anyone else. 

So, I teach my students black history; introduce them to black literature; show black cinema; wrap my locs for work; correct incorrect language; give them worldly perspectives; talk about marginalized groups; play black music, and everything and more. I shake up their entire world because I’m not here to play your game; I’m here to be myself and do what I do while doing a damn good job at it. 

So, apologies to my coworker, but not really; you should watch what you say next time.