Dialogue: It's hard to watch your kid lose his innocence

Once reality strikes, keeping an open mind on race involves a deliberate act of will. ROGER FRANKLIN* reflects on his child's first tribal skirmish.

At 13, my boy Ned knows just enough to hide his insecurities about those adult mysteries he has yet to comprehend. He's gawky, emotionally and physically, and loud when not inexplicably sullen.

There is a wall-smashing gusto about his every move, but his friends all seem to be the same, so I don't feel the need to worry. In fact, in our quieter moments - late at night, say, with a drink - my wife and I succumb to self-congratulation. We're doing okay; the kid's all right.

A scholar is stirring, we dare to believe, and somewhere within that roiling adolescent there is the glimmer of a decent man. We can trust him, which is why, for the first time in his short life, he'll be going solo in the city. No parents and babysitters as he makes his way around Manhattan - just a cellphone and an unsupervised sense of self.

That was how I came to witness a moment both profound and unsettling. If it's really the privilege that the parenting books insist to watch a child grow up, the price we pay is the terrible certainty that we must also witness the end of childhood.

It took place last weekend. I saw it, and it happened this way:

First, Ned called to report that he was at the park near East 42nd St, a concrete handkerchief tucked into a quiet pocket beside the United Nations building. Five mates were with him, and he was calling, as he dutifully explained, to report that they had stopped to shoot hoops on their way to our apartment.

Since the dog needed walking, I ambled down to meet him. He wouldn't be overjoyed to see me, of course, and there would be a momentary glare that said I was intruding. But the dog is always a welcome addition to his social circle, so she would save me from too dark a look.

At the park, things had changed. I could see that was the case from the corner of the street.

There were more voices than there should have been - black voices, loud voices and, most worrying of all, a tangle of BMX bikes piled by the gate.

The newcomers were a long way from their turf, having likely ridden at least 6km south from Harlem into the East Side's heart of whiteness.

For some reason - well, in truth, I know the reason - I hung back, hugged the rail fence, remained unannounced without actually hiding. That sudden wariness, was it a racist reaction? Perhaps. Even as I slowed and stopped, a small voice said that it would be an awkward, flat-footed moment if I had ever to defend that sudden caution, the instant assumption that black teenagers equal danger.

There was the justification of experience, of course. The pile of bikes meant that these kids were riding in the hell of midtown traffic, and what sane or responsible parent lets his or her child do that? They must be unsupervised, likely a bit wild. The word "urban" came to mind, the latest American euphemism for "black and beware."

So I watched, part of me proud that my son, the uncontaminated non-bigot, was cutting smooth moves on the court, unconcerned about race and colour. He is fast and agile and I loved him all the more for the lithe mystery of his athleticism, which could never have been tapped from my gene pool.

And then, at just that moment when the little voice was clearing its throat, making its excuses for the sin of stereotyping, the trouble started.

One of Ned's friends called a foul on a black kid who had planted an elbow in his chest. The response was a stinging verbal slap. "This is street ball, cracker, not whitey ball," one of the black kids sneered.

"Yo, niggah ball," said another, as they exchanged high-fives. Even from black lips, which polish the racial obscenity with a certain irony, the word splatters those who hear it like a gob of filth.

The blond kid, the one who'd been fouled, was outraged, steaming mad. But the largest of the black kids yelled, "No foul" and the issue, by resentful and unspoken consensus, was allowed to pass.

Not for long, however. Another foul soon followed. More words, angrier and more pointed this time. The blond teenager's grievance, the anger he had been nursing, found its voice in a wicked, mocking imitation of a black accent. "Yo, motherf ****** ghetto boy," was all the kid managed to get out before an opponent sent him sprawling.

A slap. More pushing and cursing. I was moving now as the contagion spread, striding through the gates with the dog straining. "What are you goddamn doing?" I bellowed, a threat dressed as a question. From what I had seen, both sides were equally culpable, but I know that when I spoke I was addressing only the black kids.

The black team flung a final few curses, grabbed their bikes and pedalled off. As I shepherded Ned's crew back to the apartment they were trading Rastus and Mr Bones impersonations, persisting until I lost it and yelled at them to stop. Later, however, amid the racket coming from Ned's bedroom, I heard the slurs revived and the gleeful, mocking laughter. The white clan was celebrating its solidarity.

A while back, when he was preparing for his Confirmation, my son considered taking the name Martin, until a teacher reminded him that while the Rev King was a true martyr, he was neither a Catholic nor a saint.

Could Ned still feel the same admiration for the man who died to free America from its prejudices? My hope is that he will. But somehow, after a simple game that became a tribal skirmish, I know an openness on race will involve a deliberate act of will. For Ned, tragically, innocence is dead.

* Roger Franklin is a New York-based Herald correspondent.