My early years were spent living in a New York City housing project. I suspected that we were poor, but we were in good company. Though it is a very long time ago, I can vividly recall people, names, and incidents from the ten years that we lived in a tiny apartment. When the weather was warm, much of our lives were spent outdoors where we had more room to play.
It is funny that there are several young African American women at work who regard me as being very tough. I am the most joking and smiling of people but if things get serious, so do I. Our lead medical assistant has told every new hire not to mess with me because I come from the projects. I was not the toughest girl to emerge from those circumstances by a long shot, but mostly I became good at defending myself and standing up to bullies. The toughest of my friends, without a doubt, was Sharon Levine.
Sharon came from a family of four children, all of whom were killers. Their mother, a nurse was a wonderful and amazing woman in retrospect but she let her kids get away with murder. Sharon was tiny, very freckled with dark hair and she always loved a good fight. By the time we were older, and had moved to different places we were excellent friends. We had forged a bond when we planned together how to be thrown out of Hebrew School at the Orthodox synagogue that our parents forced us to attend. We did get thrown out and what we had to do to achieve that was pretty horrible.
One summer's afternoon, Sharon decided to beat me up. We probably had a little argument and she wanted to fight. I remember her really giving it to me, while taunting me. I ran upstairs to my mother to cry and to look for comfort. My mother herself was probably one of the feistiest women in the projects. I remember going to the Lower East Side where she grew up and being told by grown men that they were still afraid of my tiny mother.
When I went upstairs to apartment 5B, my mother got mad at me for crying. She told me that I had to go outside and finish up the fight with Sharon. I cried and pleaded with her to just let me stay in the apartment and watch TV. She told me that if I didn't go out, she would give me something to cry about. Not exactly the coddling type was she, nor the sort to defend me from the big bad world. I took the elevator back downstairs.
I called Sharon out and our fight resumed. I recall that she pummeled me again but I got in some good slaps and scratches. My mother must have known the rules of such encounters because Sharon and I never fought again.
Why am I writing about this? It is because I have been asked to join a committee by a woman who is a bully. I have called her out on many occasions and she has tried to squelch me on many more. We have come to detest each other and she knows that I am suspicious of her motivations perpetually. We are supposed to be on the same team, working for the same goals but it doesn't feel that way. When she dissolved the other committee that I had been on with her, she made this move when I was absent from the table.
Though not happy about this unilateral change in priorities, I finally felt like I was off the hook. I would not be joining up for this new way of subverting other plans and taking a shortcut to making this person look good. Consequently, it was shocking to me when two days ago a quiet, timid person from this group insisted that my ideas receive as much consideration as the other person's. This email forced my adversary's hand in terms of having to ask me participate even though I made a formal objection to the existence of the new committee.
I want to lick my wounds and retreat. However, the people in my family told me that I have to go back out and fight some more. The goal is worthy but the fight will have to be to the proverbial death. After pleading for a reprieve which landed on deaf ears, I told this bully that I would be back, and yes, she had better watch out.
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