Santa Clara University

Phil Johnson

To Be The Only...
by Phil Johnson

The journey that has led me to Santa Clara University has been an arduous and adventurous one. From a flat in London, to the suburbs of Bellevue, and now to the city of Santa Clara, countless miles have been traveled, but the imprints that those miles have left on me are immeasurable.

This trek has been amazingly valuable and I'm still learning things that are affecting me. Living in multiple cultures with different values and customs has shown me that nuances in surroundings and atmospheres are what really shape our beliefs and actions. What has been even more interesting is to see the different ways I have been received in these different cultures, and how people have responded to me because of the color of my skin. I have always been placed in situations in which I have been a minority. In facing many obstacles, I have been able to grow as a person and for that I am grateful. Although I have changed and grown from having these experiences, I know I could not have made it to this point in my life by myself.

My family has provided steady support and has encouraged me to persevere through hard times. I have three older brothers and I am a combination of each one. I have a brother in New York who is a minister, a brother in Los Angeles who is an aspiring actor, and a brother in Atlanta who is an engineer. Although we are all living in major cities across the United States, our lives all began together in England. Although I lived there for only six years, England shaped my life in many ways. We lived in North London, in a flat called Goldbeaters Groove. It was a two bedroom, one bathroom apartment for my three brothers, my parents, and myself. Quite an interesting situation. We lived in a very modest neighborhood with a large number of kids, most living in similar situations. I can remember countless afternoons just running around with the neighborhood kids creating trouble. Actually that's all we did. With my mother and father having to work so hard to make ends meet, I was often able to slip through the cracks and get into mischief. My best friend in the neighborhood, Colin, and I were always causing problems. Colin was three years older than me, but we still hung out all the time. One day, bored as we were everyday, Colin came up with the idea of setting one of our neighbors cars on fire. Not really knowing what that meant, I went along with it. We both climbed into the bed of the red truck and I can vividly remember pouring some sort of liquid which looked like water on the bed of the truck. I didn't even know why I was doing it, but Colin ordered me to, so I did it.

It turns out that liquid was gasoline. Colin then lit the bed on fire. We both ran back to our houses acting as if nothing happened. About an hour later, there was a stir among the kids in our neighborhood and my older brother and I went outside to see what all the commotion was about. Crowded around the now charred truck were policemen, seemingly all of the neighborhood kids, and the irate owner of the truck. On our way back from the car, I explained to my brother that I poured something on the truck and Colin lit it. My brother was in shock. "Philip, you burned the truck," he said. I replied that I had only, "poured water on it". My brother dismissed me as most older brothers do to their younger siblings,and I went on with the rest of my day as if nothing happened.

This kind of experience was typical of my days. Unsupervised, I seemed to create trouble wherever I went. This certainly isn't the only story of me burning things either. My brothers, friends, and I just created problems for other people. We lived in a poor area of London with a plethora of other under-privileged kids. We were your typical inner city kids. People often wonder why minorities growing up in poorer areas are frequently in trouble with the law or don't learn how to perform in school. What opportunities and avenues do minorities have who have been dealt this deck of cards? This kind of life style was normal for us. We never saw anything different. We weren't completely out of control, but we were definitely heading down a road that would lead us into trouble later in life. All under-privileged kids have a vision of making it out of poverty, and becoming great, yet realistically not many get to experience this dream. Unfortunately some kids don't have any people in their life who will love them enough to turn them around. For me, my mother was the one who turned me from my troublesome ways.

My mother was the ultimate symbol of perseverance, loyalty, and determination. Born in Nigeria and raised in Ghana, my mother moved to England when she was 16 years old seeking a better life. Her parents had left her in Ghana when she was 4 years old and they moved to England. Finally twelve years later she moved to England to be with them, although they never talked over their 12-year break from one another. My mom never finished secondary school, but she was never into school much. She worked as a seamstress at home so she could take care of her four children. The most vivid memory I have of my childhood is mother sitting at the sewing machine. Whenever I woke up she was on the machine. Whenever I went to sleep she was on the machine. Whenever I came home from anything, unless she was the one picking me up, she was on the machine.

Not only did she do her work, but she also made a majority of our clothes to save money. I can also remember the weekly trips of her boss, Roger, as he dropped off fabric and patterns for my mother, and then picked up the previous weeks completed clothes. My mother made about $300 per week, but what is most amazing and inspiring is the reason she did this. It wasn't to pay rent or even to buy food, she didn't make enough to do that. She worked on the machine to make sure that her boys didn't have to go to the local public school where all of the other children from our neighborhood went. Because of my mother's sacrifice my three brothers and I all went to private school. I even went to a private pre-school. My mother had a vision for us and refused to let our circumstances and race determine our future. She foresaw that the destiny we were carving out for ourselves was not prosperous. Going to private school taught us that there was life outside of grim London.

On Dec. 17th 1989, my brother, mother and I moved to the U.S.. My two oldest brothers were pursuing careers elsewhere. My father had gone to the U.S. in 1987 seeking opportunity and prosperity. He stayed with his cousin for two years until he saved enough money to buy his own place and move us. During those two years, he went to night classes to learn how to become a wheelchair specialist. He focused on the engineering design aspects. You'd think such a compassionate job would have humbled my father, but he was as tough as nails. None of us had a relationship with him. This was partly because only two of us were biologically his kids. Although my father relationally had little contact with us, he had brought us into a new world with new hope and for that I will always be thankful.

In the U.S. I didn't have too many black friends. Of all places in the world to move, we moved to Bellevue, Washington, one of the richest, whitest cities in America. Bellevue is the home of Microsoft and Nintendo. Starbucks' headquarters is only 20 minutes away, as well Amazon.com and Boeing. I didn't go to school with many black kids, but I went to the community center about five days a week and was able to see all of the black kids from the area during those times. Although I got to see the black kids there, school was very different and always provided a very precarious situation for me.

During my first week of school in January, I met a white kid named Mike Rice. We became friends. I went to his house and played video games and played in his backyard. This was probably very normal for him, but to me this was a whole new way of life. I had never sat in swings for fun or even seen a video game. Right away I knew something was different with the people here.

There was only one other black person in my first grade class. Her name was Lauren Poole and everyone always made fun of me, saying that I liked her. Throughout elementary school, only fifth grade provided me with a class where there was another black person. I cannot even remember there being a black teacher at my school. If it wasn't for the Crossroads Community Center, which was filled with 90% African Americans, I wouldn't have interacted with black people besides my family during my second, third, and fourth grade years.

Being the only African American in a given situation has always created uncomfortable moments. When I was in elementary school, there weren't too many instances when race issues arose, but there was one day in particular that I hated each year: Martin Luther King Day. All we did that day was talk about King and what he did for black people. Since I was the only black person in most of my classes I felt very uncomfortable. I always sensed that during those conversations everyone was staring at me. They might as well have said what King did for me rather than black people, because the effects of what he did hadn't impacted the city of Bellevue. I would never say a word. Here I was on what was supposed to be one of my proudest, most uplifting days as an African American, and I hated it. Although my attitude about Martin Luther King Day has changed and I am happy to celebrate it now, I will never forget how much I hated feeling on the spot like that.

School was always a situation in which obstacles were placed in my progress. Because my fifth grade teacher believed I excelled academically, he recommended to my mother that I go to a different middle school than all of my friends. It was called the International School. This school had accelerated teaching and was run like a private school. To get in you had to write an essay and go through an interview. I was very excited to hear that I got in. What I didn't know was that I would be the only African American in the entire school.

Luckily, in seventh grade, there was another black student who came to the school-my cousin. It was a bit humiliating, though, realizing that my cousin and me were the only black students there. I didn't care at first, but my friends started making comments about it. This made me feel incredibly awkward, just like when I was in elementary school. Anytime any topic having to do with race was brought up, I closed up. I felt like all eyes were on me. I always felt like I was being watched. I was starting to realize that things weren't supposed to be this way. Although the International School had a high school, I decided I was definitely going to transfer to a regular public school where there were more African Americans. When I was at the International School I always wondered why no one was like me. I often had trouble making friends. I don't think anybody else in that school was like me. I was starting to be exposed to more of what my future would be like.

The first time I directly faced racism it devastated me. I was a freshman in high school playing in a soccer game. I stole the ball from someone and my opponent said something under his breath. To be honest I didn't think anything of it and I continued with the game. After the ball went out of bounds, my friend Casey came up to me and said that the opposing player just called me a "nigger". I stood there in astonishment. I felt an incredible rush of anger and rage inside of me and was resolved to get the kid who called me a nigger. The ball went between the two of us and I tried to throw him to the ground. The referee called a foul and I got a yellow card meaning I immediately needed to be substituted. I threw my gloves on the cold turf and walked to the bench. I was irate on the sideline yelling and screaming at the referee. My coach came to calm me down, but I refused to listen. I continued to be loud and irate and finally my coach calmed me down. I sat out for the rest of the half, went out in the second half and scored the winning goal.

After the game, a once gleeful moment (scoring the winning goal), turned into an emotional outpour. I cried and cried after the game. I had never had my pride hurt like that before and I couldn't control myself. My brother, who grew up in the south, tried to console me. He told me it was just a part of life, and that it would likely happen to me numerous times. This just made me feel worse. My brother started sharing kinder words about how those kind of remarks didn't describe me. That helped a lot but I still felt completely singled out. I just couldn't understand why the guy called me a nigger. I'm not a nigger. Never have been and never will be. It was so surprising and out of place. I will never forget that day.

When racism comes into areas of my life like sports it just makes me wonder why I play. This wasn't even the worst racial taunting I received. I can remember playing a game in which an opposing player guarded me the whole game saying things like, "Go back to Africa" and calling me a "coon" and other names. How can one be expected to play under these conditions? The game of soccer shouldn't be tarnished by things like this, but this is real life. Unfortunately, situations like this just make me want to quit. I know I don't deserve to be treated this way. It is frustrating to experience these things and still have the same expectations as others. My coaches never understood how it feels, which further frustrated me. I've learned to deal with it in college but as a youngster, racial pressure could have been enough to push me out of sports.

My senior year in high school was one of the most amazing times of my life. It was a year filled with great victories and learning experiences. During my senior year, I was the captain of the varsity soccer team and also a two-way starter on our state championship football team. I had clocked the fastest 40-yard dash time in the state and was voted athlete of the year in the school newspaper. Everyone knew me as the ultimate black athlete. What no one really knew was that I was fully capable academically and closely tied in with my church. Actually no one really cared that I was more than an athlete. At the end of the year, my math teacher wrote to everyone in the class. His comments varied from, "It was great having you in class" to "Good luck in the future". All of the comments the teacher gave my friends seemed superficial and quite frankly what I had begun to expect from my teachers at the end of the year. This led to my surprise at what he wrote me:

"Phil, when we first started the class I thought you were just some fast black kid who could kick a soccer ball. Throughout the quarter I was able to see that you're more than that. You're going to go on to do great things." -Mr. Moody