San Francisco, like any big city, has suburbs, yes it does. You have to cross bridges and drive through tunnels to get to most of them, which may make them feel rather more remote than other cities' suburbs, but they are suburbs, nonetheless.
Recently, we took our city boys way out to one of these areas, where a beautiful, million-dollar soccer field sits amidst green hills and trees, almost floating in space. By the end of the match, after a short rain, my rakishly handsome and bruised son looked like the battle-hardened athlete he truly is.
This is his off-season soccer team, a special unit of players pulled together from various schools throughout the city, and still learning how to work together as a unit. But the coach is skilled and he is blending them into a winning team. In this contest, they were playing a team that has played together for years, and it showed.
I overheard one of our kids at halftime say of their opponents, "Those guys are so white. They talk white!"
Be that as it may, they played the better game, though it was a close match in the second half, and our boys almost pulled out an upset. As he always does, afterward my kid said, "That was fun." He never seems to react to wins or losses, specifically, but just to the experience of competing.
He loves to compete, plain and simple. I love watching him. He is like a warrior on the pitch, especially when his hair gets plastered down from a combination of rain and sweat, and he is covered with mud.
Driving back into our more familiar environment, he anticipating a warm bath and me a hot cup of tea, I found myself wondering whether we are "white" people any longer. We certainly are, if by that term you mean skin color, but when it comes to attitude, perhaps not.
Then again, where he goes to school, my kid is a minority, since the student population is composed of 94 percent what American considers "minorities." Or, as he puts it, "I'm a minority -- there are only three redheads in the whole school!"
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2 comments:
Your son has an excellent take on what sports is all about!! He loves the game for the game itself and not for whether the win or loss- although I'm sure it feels good to win- It is refreshing to know he enjoyed the game even with a loss.
On a different note- as we shouldn't generalize any subject or people- thus we shouldn't generalize 'white'- as though there was something wrong with being white or talking white. I think any group which is inverted is unhealthy- no matter what colour they may be internally or externally-- It is good to learn from each other. Your son appears to be very healthy in this aspect.
I had to learn to 'accept' my 'white' self- because of growing up in Asia- and later living for 24 years back in Asia and Africa. I had to literally teach my children to celebrate ALL of who they were- the Chinese bits, the Indian bits AND the white bits- whether they be Norwegian, German, Irish, Scottish or whatever. No one should have to feel 'bad' about being who they are.
I probably should have added that the boy on our team who made this comment is mixed-race (Asian and white) and I believe he was referring to a cultural style of talking and acting -- and not race or skin color actually. I agree with your assessment, Anjuli, that we all are multi-cultural, multi-racial, and multi-national in our essence as humans.
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