My Foe, My Friend, Tyler

I attended Carlisle School, established in 1968 to combat the evils of integration and once known as a "dumping ground for rich kids," from third to twelfth grade. At Carlisle, I developed a very special, but unorthodox, friendship with a tall, lanky boy named Tyler C.

Tyler was in all my classes from sixth grade until graduation. Carlisle was a school like all others with its one-note stereotypes, and Tyler was always known as the "smart" kid, destined for Harvard or at least some university that at least masqueraded around as a pseudo-Ivy (read: Duke or UVA). He was the pride of the school since he was white, preppy, and was smart in non-threatening, noble way. His parents were members of the Chatmoss Country Club, where they mingled with Martinsville's Old Money (descended from the finest Confederate heroes the South ever produced) over cocktails.

Tyler and I had a fairly easy relationship in middle school, when I was a mediocre student trying to get by and maximize my Dawson's Creek-watching time. My favorite joke after receiving any grade back in class was this: "What did you get Tyler? A 99.9?" Yucks all around.

When we got to high school, I began to live up to my true South Asian glory. My parents had realized that Pakistanis were losing the race against really, really smart Indians, and their motto over the summer had become: No Pakistani Child Left Behind. In ninth grade (a.k.a. the big leagues), Tyler and I became really competitive. He became the sole reason for my forgoing Friday night parties at Ian's house (had my parents actually permitted me to leave the house) so that I could get a leg up in studying for IB Biology.

Tyler would continually bait me and asked me how much I had studied. I would in turn ask him if he had gotten that 99.9. When I did better than Tyler, I felt redeemed. Even my parents got in on the competition; my mom would ask me what Tyler got on the test even before she asked me my grade. If I did better than him, then it was a true victory. In retrospect, it was as if Tyler and I were yin and yang - without Tyler, it was as if I didn't exist - my grades, my class rank meant nothing if Tyler wasn't struggling, competing right alongside with me.

Now, after a liberal education at UNC, where I have become truly radicalized with regards to imperialism and racism, I see the competitive spirit between me and Tyler as a symbolic one in the nature of David and Goliath or at the very least, the Karate Kid verses that guy he fights at the end of the movie.

Tyler was the privileged white kid from the right side of the tracks, the true champion, who everyone was rooting for - he stood for everything the Normative, the Establishment, the Old Guard (in one hearkens back to the Russian Revolution). On the other hand, I was ethnic, not a member of the country club, and was not a God fearin' Presbyterian, the religion of choice of the Southern upper class. I was a racial and social interloper, threatening to overthrow the Old Order with my fiercely competitive (yet American) spirit and my wiliness; I was, in short, the underdog. I wasn't about to duel Tyler in the Southern, gentile fashion. I was going to use my parents' ruthless immigrant work ethic (imported from the Old Country) to take down the oppressive Establishment that promoted white hegemony as the colored folk labored quietly in the fields.

In hindsight, I look back on my time at Carlisle School with fondness. While struggling and competing with Tyler really did a number on my acid reflux, I really miss having a worthy foe to contend with, and when I went to college, it was as if some part of me was missing. Medical school would be way more awesome if there was Tyler C. to make a test grade victory all the more sweeter.

--By Mariam, who really hopes Tyler C. doesn't read this. That would be....awkward.