The other day I had a flashback to my childhood. I was not a cool kid. I didn’t have any hair until I was two and most of my days were spent face first in the carpet with a full diaper, but I was reminded of a statue that was in our backyard. Growing up I never thought it was weird that we had this statue, but looking back, it was really weird. We had a statue of a little black boy. He was about two feet tall and he was just in our backyard. Growing up, I genuinely thought this kid was real. I thought this little black boy was being punished by my parents and was forced to be outside. As I got older, people would ask about it and I thought nothing of it, “Oh, that’s just our black boy statue.” But now that I’m thinking about it, why the fuck would we have that? That’s not like having a goofy birdbath or a worthless shed…….that’s a black boy statue. Maybe it made my parents feel better? You know when people accuse you of being racist and everyone shoots back with, “No! I have a black friend!” Maybe my parents excuse was, “No way Jose, I have a black statue!” People would always comment about it too, especially at dinner parties. Conversation always went something like this, “Oh my god! You’re yard is huge! I bet the kids just love, what the hell is that?” My parents would just laugh. There was never an explanation as to why we had this little black boy in our backyard. Was it in remembrance of a long lost black brother? Were we former KKK members? I just have so many questions…….
