The Dance of Fear by Harriet Lerner

Author:Harriet Lerner [Lerner, Harriet]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-06-198371-9
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2004-02-27T16:00:00+00:00

THE SLAVE SALE AT P.S. 99

One of my worst experiences of shame took place in the fifth grade at Public School 99 in Brooklyn. The school was holding a “slave sale” in each classroom to raise money for the American Red Cross. Sound like a bad idea? I can only tell you that it was worse than you might imagine.

On the first day of this two-day fund-raising project, the boys stood before the class, and one by one, in alphabetical order, were auctioned off to the girls. The bidding began at one dollar and went up from there. I had saved my allowance for months for a boy named Donny, whom I had a wild crush on. When I won him, he was my “slave-for-a-day” and had to do my bidding. I was in heaven as I ordered him to sharpen my pencils, fetch my coat from the closet, and carry my books home from school.

The next day the girls lined up in front of the class and were auctioned off to the boys. My classmates were sold off at a fast clip. But when it was my turn, there were no takers at the one dollar starting price. After a silence that seemed like an eternity, the teacher asked,

“Do I hear fifty cents for Harriet?”

More silence.

“A quarter. Do I hear twenty-five cents?”

Silence and tittering.

I stared at my saddle shoes. I wanted to disappear.

“A dime?” A note of pleading had crept into the teacher’s voice.

And then, more sternly, “Come on now, boys! Ten cents? Do I hear ten cents?”

Nobody stirred.

“Remember, boys, you can have more than one slave!”

Out of kindness, pity, or plain discomfort, Donny finally raised his hand. “I’ll give five cents,” he muttered. Later he said to me: “You don’t have to be my slave. Just forget it.”

I have never forgotten the experience of standing there on the “slave block,” hot with shame and anxiety under the pitiless gaze of my classmates. I was skinny as a stick, and draped in a plaid jumper that was glaringly out of style. It was several sizes too big, one of my mother’s thrift-store bargains. My mother always told me that I was “between sizes”—a concept I somehow never questioned. She believed in buying my clothing several sizes too large so that she could shorten the hem, and then lengthen it in subsequent years. Standing there in front of my appraising peers, I felt more than merely unattractive. I felt ugly, grotesque, light-years away from the possibility of being chosen.

It’s easy to understand how shame can turn into social anxiety or a fear of social situations. If I had developed a school phobia, who would have blamed me? I pleaded with my mother not to go back to school after that day. She convinced me, somehow, that I could return and survive.

Telling the story today, I feel a different kind of shame—the shame that this terrible activity happened at all. Beyond the cruelty visited on “unchosen” children, how could my school

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