A BUCK-FIFTY: A Harsh Lesson in Race Relations, Worth Every Penny

PHOTO CREDIT: "SCAR" BY DANIEL PASIKOV

“Don't wanna die, tell me why?

Cause the stress gettin’ major

A buck-fifty 'cross the face with my razor.”

- Rapper Tupac Shakur on the song Pain

Harvard’s first black president, Claudine Gay, recently stepped down after evidence of plagiarism surfaced in a meager academic output that questioned her fitness for the position. Not just a little plagiarism. A lot of plagiarism. While much of the fire is aimed at Gay’s academic dishonesty, we need to consider why Gay’s professors and advisors failed to point it out to her. 

One likely cause is that they feared being labeled ‘racists’ for holding Gay to objective standards, a lesson I learned the hard way in 1999, when a black student threatened me with “a buck-fifty.”

“A buck-fifty” is street gang slang for a slash that requires one hundred fifty stitches. It runs from the ear to the chin, branding the receiver with a raging red scar. In 1999, two months prior to this threat, a dollar and change was all I had as I stood in a Brooklyn bodega, a bag of spinach in one hand, a carton of tofu in the other. Unable to afford both, I lingered in the aisle weighing which was the most nutritious choice. 

Broke is knowing how many pennies you have, and three jingled along with a quarter on my way home with the tofu to my dingy room in a railroad flat under the Brooklyn Queens Expressway. In my late thirties, fairly new to New York City after teaching English in South Korea for three years, getting married and having children seemed out of reach with little time to meet men around working three jobs. 

Job #3: Teaching “Intro to Literature” at a Community College. In the interview the spiky-haired Chair, with long green fingernails and breath that reeked of coffee asked, “Are you sure you want to do this?” Yes, I responded, though the question was how. I worked full-time at a Midtown Language School, with night and weekend classes teaching fiction writing. This literature course would run two mornings a week from 8-9:30, a grueling schedule. The collective remuneration still wasn’t enough to make student loan payments, much less pay off the credit card debt that cut into how much was left for rent.

On the first day of “Intro to Literature,” my oatmeal and banana breakfast had burned off by the time I entered the classroom. I carried the professorial leather briefcase purchased during my last year of graduate school, inside it the heavy blue “Introduction to Literature” textbook that the Chair had handed over saying: “Don’t let them get by with plagiarism. All papers must be typed. Code every error.”

In the windowless classroom, a diverse array of about thirty students took their seats, a lot of individuals to manage. Heaving an enthused aura, I assigned Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” for the next session, describing how the author skulked about alone in Iowa City, where she was frequently observed studying the animals at the beleaguered zoo. 

At the end of class, a robust, neatly dressed black man in his thirties lingered as I gathered my things. When the last student had filed out of the classroom, he corralled me between the lectern and the cinder block wall. 

“My last English professor tried giving me a ‘C,’” he intoned. “And that was a serious mistake.” 

“Oh?” I responded in an airy way to offset his intimidating tone. 

He drew closer. “I’m in the veterinarian program. I don’t get lower than a B. You understand?” 

En route to the subway, I told myself that of course the student, whom I’ll call ‘Kevin O’Rourke,’ (a similarly Anglo name) would get a B or even an A. I would make everything so clear, the class so compelling, that everyone would earn high grades. This is what most teachers would tell themselves. Teaching generally isn’t a lucrative field. We do it for the thrill of lifting people up.

My inner voice advised reporting O’Rourke’s demand to the Chair, but that would call negative attention to myself. Students often pled for good grades. But did they say that a low grade would be “a serious mistake”? Didn’t that sound threatening? Or did I perceive it as such because the student was black? 

In the mid 80’s, on my way home from waiting tables in Chicago, an unhinged-looking black man approached on the late-night sidewalk. My gut told me to cross the street until the narrative intervened and said: That’s racist, so I continued walking towards him down darkened W. Addison. 

When we intersected on the sidewalk, he grabbed me by the neck saying, “I’m gonna stick my big black dick up your asshole, then I’m a na kill you.” I remembered an article that advised looking one’s assailant in the eyes, forcing them to see into your soul. It took all the courage I could muster to gaze into this man’s blazing eyes and say, “Don’t.” Slowly, he released his grip and I bolted three blocks home to a roommate who said that I looked like I’d just seen a ghost. 

In processing Kevin O’Rourke’s dubious introduction, my conscience battled with the narrative versus protecting my own safety. Every nerve in my body told me that he had issued a bona fide threat. And every atom of my ego fought with it, determining that Kevin could be won over once he realized that I wasn’t one of those “racist” white people. 

*****

Kevin glowered at me from the center front row. The discussion was dominated by an older Polish woman with a thick accent and an advanced degree in her native country. The others issued terse answers to questions, evaded responding, or simply nodded off. Kevin stayed after class to tell me that he couldn’t type assignments, protesting this obligation on the syllabus.

I told him that the Chair had told me that students could type in the lab. That all assignments had to be typed.

Kevin closed in. “I don’t type. Are you going to hold me back because of that?” 

I said of course not. But he should try to type in the lab if he could. As a future veterinarian, wouldn’t he would need to type?

I sped out of the building, through the liminal industrial area over the track bed where a hooded man jacked off against the barrier. Again I toyed with consulting the Chair and decided against it. Expressing concern over a black student’s behavior filled me with the terror that it could be twisted into an indelible stain on my character. 

In the next class, Kevin announced that he’d been under the impression that more women in the workplace would create a better world. “But “Professor L is just like a man,” he said. “And all you are is an adjunct.”

I feigned ignorance to this remark, though it twisted my gut. Add to this that I was tired and hungry. My pants hung loose, emphasizing my impotence. 

Kevin submitted his first assignment handwritten in blocky letters that resembled a child’s. The printed letters balanced on the blue lines like faltering tightrope walkers. Moved, I accepted it, and gave it a good grade. 

This spawned Kevin’s enthusiastic participation over the next few weeks. He apologized for giving me a hard time. He could see how much I cared about my students. Like the embattled inner city teacher who’d just won over her intransigent charges, my ego soared en route to my other job, and my other job after that.

Won over, Kevin submitted a typed midterm essay. The English Department had assigned a mentor who advised on grading them. In her small dark office, we discussed the piles into which she had placed the essays: 1 A, (the Polish woman) a few B’s, many C’s, and two D’s, Kevin’s among them. 

“It’s just reiterating the plot,” she said of Kevin’s paper. “There’s no analysis. The student’s not even responding to the prompt. This reads like a summary off the internet.”

Her assessment corroborated mine, though my impulse was to give the paper a ‘C.’ She reminded me that ‘C’ means average. This paper was below that. A voice rang in my head that white teachers give black students lower grades, except Kevin O’Rourke did not sound like a black name and besides, the assessment was objectively true to standards. The mentor did not know him, fortifying the objectivity of her assessment. 

Because Kevin was black, and because he intimidated me, I overrode the mentor’s ‘D’ and gave his paper a ‘C.’ Meanwhile, his Hispanic counterpart in the ‘D’ pile got the ‘D’ the paper deserved. 

******

After handing out those graded papers, I entered a tense feeling in the classroom, the kind of forced calm that follows commotion. Kevin resumed scowling from the center front row in his neat trousers and fuzzy Kangol cap, the same cap worn by my favorite professor at the University of Iowa. The students slunk in their seats, arms folded across their chests. The Polish woman had moved from the front row to the middle, away from Kevin. After class, it was she who hovered at the lectern with an urgent concern.

“I’m scared,” she said. “He threatened me for getting an A. He says I can’t even speak English properly so why did I get A.” She went on to say that prior to my arrival, Kevin had coerced everyone to reveal their grades, threatening those in the B range. Though I had to be at the language school within the hour, I went with the Polish woman to report Kevin’s harassment to the administration. 

We assumed that our concern would be taken very seriously. Instead, it was met with stony glares of annoyance, impassive and incredulous brown faces that seemed to blame us for Kevin’s behavior. The Polish woman and I left the building together, shaking. “They didn’t care,” she kept saying. “They didn’t believe us.” 

Next class, after moving apartments late into the night before, I arrived to several agitated students hovering outside the classroom. They would not go in because of that guy. Out of robotic fealty to responsibility, I walked into a field of tension, Kevin sitting legs splayed in the front row, the many empty seats like knocked-out teeth. Only the bravest souls attended that day. 

While writing on the board the discussion questions for “A Raisin in the Sun,” Kevin shouted at my back:  “Why are you making us write three essays? No other professor does that.”

My hand rummaged in my bag without purpose. Lifting it would reveal that I was shaking. From the corner of my eye, a student in the back row waved and mouthed, Get out…

“I was given a sample syllabus with three essays on it,” I said in a quivering voice.

Kevin scanned the room for approval before saying, “Professor L. Is going to be the first professor at X Community College to get a buck-fifty. For making me a raisin in the sun.” 

The waving student reared in his seat, mouthing, Go! Go! Go! He motioned calling security and along with several others inched out of the room. 

I picked up my briefcase and said, “I’ll be right back.” Out in the hall, the students told me what a buck-fifty meant, and how swiftly a slashing could happen. 

By this time security had come to escort Kevin out of the classroom. In the midst of trying to affect composure, a black woman named Annette arrived late and said, “I’m sorry I haven’t been coming to class, but that Kevin guy is threatening everyone and I don’t feel safe.” 

I pled with Annette to explain this to the English Department. It seemed no one would believe me, a white woman, but they would believe a black woman. We arrived to Kevin shouting at the Chair that I was a racist. Annette shouted, “People like you make us all look bad,” and “She’s not racist, stop throwing that word around,” which Kevin bellowed over. At this juncture, English professors oozed out of every orifice to confess that Kevin had threatened them too, and that they had given him the grades he demanded.

I was then told that “he has a right to an education” and to write a testimony. The upper administration would consider the right course of action. I could not sleep, fearing that Kevin would knife me on that lonely bridge over the dead railroad tracks. I begged my roommates to escort my blathering, jittery corpus to class, carrying that hopeful professorial briefcase. A few days later, word came that Kevin O’Rourke had dropped out of school of his own volition.

The administration seemed relieved to be absolved of the responsibility for expelling Kevin, despite numerous witnesses to his threats. This merely added to my discomfort. Kevin O’Rourke’s behavior affected a twisted quid pro quo verboten on every Title IX tutorial. This parallels Claudine Gay’s callous response to whether harassing Jews is against the code of conduct at Harvard. The subtext is that white people deserve to be abused because history, even though such histories should not be repeated.

The race-card bullying would not end with Kevin O’Rourke. The next round of essays included one with a plagiarized opening line: “Blake did not believe in the contemplative life.” We hadn’t studied Blake. I typed the line in google and got a carbon copy of that essay on sale for $20.99. 

I called the student to the lectern and gently said that I had found this essay on the internet. I’d give her a week to write another and though required to report it to the dean, I wouldn’t.

Without processing what I’d said, the student, a heavy-set black woman in her early thirties, shouted: “You’re saying I didn’t write that paper because I’m black!” 

“I found it on the internet.” My stomach turned and my hands shook.

She went on and on. I was “racist,” keeping black people down. 

Once again, I wound up in the English Department, sputtering student in tow, yelling “racism.” The professors streamed out of their offices into the conference room.

“What does ‘contemplative’ mean?” the Chair asked. 

“It means ‘contemplative,’” the student pouted. 

“I said, what does it mean?”

I slunk in my seat, spent. I had not been sleeping or able to eat. My teeth chattered.

“From whom did you learn what Blake believed about the “contemplative life?” the Chair asked. 

“You think I didn’t write that essay because I’m black!”

The Chair leaned across the table, fixing an intent gaze on the student. “There’s not a professor walking the face of this earth who should believe you wrote that paper.” 

*******

Later that day, I sputtered this experience to a co-worker at my full-time job. She responded with a story of getting attacked by a group of girls who stole her wallet. Shrugging off my sympathetic incredulity, she said, “I deserved it. My life will always be better than theirs.” 

It ought to be obvious to everyone that enabling abuse is not going to ameliorate race relations.

Fearing the ‘R’ word merely perpetuates the negative stereotypes that we’re not allowed to talk about.

In the wake of Claudine Gay’s demotion from well-paid administrator to a 900-grand a year faculty member, her path to the top seems clear. Her teachers, afraid of being scarred with the dreaded ‘R’ word likely caused them to turn a blind eye to her plagiarism. Whether Gay was aware of her academic dishonesty, or oblivious to it, the result is the same: Gay did not produce reputable work. Yet that should be the goal for everyone.

The most nutritious choice: Look the accuser wielding the ‘R’ word in the eyes and say: Don’t. Here’s hoping they’ll see that person’s soul.

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