The Opportunity Index

5Zero-Sum Game

“OH, YOU NIGGER!” THE SCHOOL bus went silent. Tony slapped his hand over his mouth when he realized what he had just said. He looked at me and then at Brian, the only other Black boy on the bus. Everyone else looked at Tony and then at me and then at Brian. Tony and I were effectively best friends. We sat next to each other in class, departed school together, and he often waited until I boarded the bus back to Tottenham before he walked to his home in the then more affluent area of Enfield.

Then the questions came. “Gavin, Brian, are going to take that!?” “Are you going to beat Tony up!?” “You have to beat him up!”

Twice a week a bus came to collect all the students in our grade to take us to swimming lessons, about a 15-minute bus ride away. The school was tucked in a residential neighborhood, away from the busy main street. It always felt strange walking past rows of quiet front gardens, turning a corner, and seeing a large school emerge behind some intimidating wrought-iron fences. For the bus driver this presented a challenge; the narrow streets were not designed for a long, double-decker bus. The bus driver, Kenneth, greeted us with a sparkling smile as we boarded the bus. To turn the bus around after collecting the schoolchildren took some skill, and Kenneth would often have to shunt the bus backwards and forwards several times to reverse. The problem on this occasion was that someone had parked illegally near the school, so when Kenneth tried to turn the ...