Things changed gradually. Over the course of that first year, a few white parents let their children back into the school. At first they were kept separate from Bridges. “The principal, who was part of the opposition, would take the kids and she would hide them, so that they would never come in contact with me.” Towards the end of the first year, however, on Henry’s insistence, Bridges was finally allowed to be part of a small class with other six-year-olds. “A little boy then said to me: ‘My mom said not to play with you because you’re a ________,’” Bridges recalls. “And the minute he said that, it was like everything came together. All the little pieces that I’d been collecting in my mind all fit, and I then understood: the reason why there’s no kids here is because of me, and the colour of my skin. That’s why I can’t go to recess. And it’s not Mardi Gras. It all sort of came together: a very rude awakening. I often say today that really was my first introduction to racism.”
My hat is off to both of the women in it, and their willngessness to record this. It is very hard to watch.
Please be advised that there are some disturbing images and situations in this video doc. It is however very very well done.
Gutted.
It’s haunted me days after I watched it once.
Thematically related, but on a different emotional note, this… which I found all too easy to imagine happening in the U.S., if the fascists come to power in a more expansive, entrenched way:
