Black and white

A TEACHER'S DAY-2 DAVID ROGERS

'Sir—'eard the one about the black man on the zebra crossing?' Mickey the Kid leans back, arms folded, a shaft of sunshine catching his Health Service glasses. 'There was this white man, see, coming down Barking Road . .

'No it waddn't. It was over Rotherhithe.'

'Anyway,' says Mickey, firmly, 'this black man just stands on the crossing, an' the white man stops, an' then the black man walks slowly across, saying, "Now you sees me—now you don't." ' 'That's all you hear round my way. Jokes about black men.'

'All of them coming into the shops and picking up things and smelling 'em. My Dad told 'em we're not used to it.'

'But that's only their manner,' put in Gentle- man John. 'I expect if we . .

'Yeah, you can belt up an' all. Mitcham ain't no bleedin' colony. Not like round the back 'ere. I wouldn't go up Brick Lane on a Saturday night. White man's grave, my ole man calls it.'

'Yeah, I bet 'e goes up Brick Lane, an' all, for a nice bit of black though.'

The bough of a cherry tree that has some- how found itself in E6 stirs and rustles against the high window. The shouts of a totter on his cart are heard above the con- tinual roar of exhaust. It is Tuesday morning again. In classroom four we've been discuss- ing immigration.

Mickey the Kid is firm. 'Send the bleeders back, all of them. I mean, you know, I mean why the hell should they come here and take our houses? Look how it's all changed, and they jabber away to each other. 'Ere, 'ere, I bet you if you asked all those that lived near 'em they'd all say the same. Everyone does.'

'You can't send 'em back. What they going to work at? You stupid gink, that's why they came over here in the first place.'

'An' if you did that,' piped up McNeil, 'you wouldn't have no doctors or bus drivers, or any of that type, now would you? Matter of fact, I got good reason to be thankful. It was a wog what stuck my thumb back. Put it on clean as anything. You'd never know, would you?'

He held up his right thumb. It was care- fully inspected. 'Well, I don't know. I mean, you don't know if 'e might not 'ave left something inside. I mean, looks all right. All right for a wog job, that is. But you can't tell.' Mickey was suspicious.

'Have a close bloody look then, mate,' said McNeil furiously. 'You bleedin' tell me where it's joined on, an' I'll 'elp you build a raft an' ship all the blacks back where they come from! You can't tell where it's joined. So belt up, gyppo•' Slicker said, 'What about all those what come here just to go on the panel? Or go up the board. We must be spending pounds on them.'

'Yeah, but it's not so much, like, just money. What I was getting at—before that lairy loon butted in about his thumb—was this. Down the East End we're overcrowded an' we're bleedin' poor. Not poor like me Mum was, but poor compared with where ole Gentleman lives. An' we all know it's rough an' dirty. Well, it doesn't make it any better to let the blacks in. All right if they went up west or to Mitcham, but they don't. They come 'ere an' then go on the dole an' all that. Send 'em back, an' we'd all be better off.'

'They wouldn't be better off. What work they going to do then?'

'OK, let 'em go on the dole over there, an' we'll pay. Send the money out. That would be bleedin' perfect. They don't like it here. Always complaining they are, like that coon we had last term. Let 'em go home, leaving the houses an' all that for us. But we'll let 'em take the dole with 'em. They can use it to build factories out there. Ain't that right, Slicker?'

'Yeah.' Slicker had been picked up for having cannabis yesterday, had avoided the remand home at Ashford by the skin of his teeth, and was worried about the magistrates next week. So he was even more morose than usual. 'S'right.' And he selected a new piece of gum.

'Well, I reckon you're plain bloody stupid,' said Gentleman John. 'Say we did that what about the future? They're not going to stay in Africa and West India for ever, you know. Not when that population explosion happens. Then where will you be? I'll tell you, mate. In dead trouble, that's where.'

Mickey the Kid took off one of his cowboy boots, and felt into his top pocket for a spur, which he lovingly rubbed with a scarlet and blue handkerchief before fitting it to the boot.

Gentleman John went on: 'But I think its more than that. I think you're bonkers 'cos your attitude's all wrong. You're more than bonkers. You're sick. Just because they are

a different colour ' 'How many black men you got living in Mitcham?'

Gentleman John ignored Slicker. '—you're afraid, an' you don't know any personally, do you? You say you've got so many blacks living near you, but how many do you actually know, you know, to speak to?'

'There was that coon last term, 'e was OK, I suppose.'

Slicker came in again. 'But it's not the ones or twos we object to, it's the thousands of them, swamping everything.'

'Yeah,' said McNeil, 'you 'ave to admit, sir, 'e's got a point there. I mean, I think we got to try and get on with them, if only there wasn't so many. That's what I mean. Not send 'em back, but not let any more in.'

'You're talking bleedin' cobblers. Slicker an' I live here, an' we say send 'em back. Pay for them to go back.' Mickey was yelling in his excitement. 'Back to the jungle.'

'Well, I think you're sick,' shouted Gentle- man John, but then the bell went, and there was never a hope of keeping them after time. Rowdy voices down the corridor, the classroom suddenly quiet.

In the doorway Gentleman John turned. 'You don't believe what Mickey was saying, do you?'

'No.'

'But I don't think we'll ever change their minds, do you?'