M: I really admire people who have the courage to stand up for what they believe
B: Me too. It takes a lot of guts to stick with something even when everyone else says your're wrong.
A: Have you ever had a situation like that - when you stuck with something despite criticism from others?
B: Yeah, kind of, when I was in high school. I grew up in the U.S. in the deep South where there were
historically a lot of problems between black and white people.
A: Mmm. Louisiana, right?
B: Right. My school was a private school and there was only one African-American in my class.
A: Only one? How many students?
B: Sixty.
A: Wow.
B: Yeah. His name was Eric and most of my classmates didn't want to have anything to do with Eric.
In the school cafeteria no one would sit at his table. Some people even called him racist names.
A: Why? Just because he was black?
B: Yeah.
A: Man, that really sucks.
B: I know. I often saw him sitting by himself and I kind of felt sorry for him, but I was afraid I would
lose a lot of my friends if I talked to him, so I would just pass him by.
A: Uh-huh.
B: Then, one day, I was riding my bike home and I came across Eric sitting by a lake. He was just sitting
there looking out at the water. Something inside of me said, "Go ahead. Speak to him." So, I called out,
"Hey, it's nice here, isn't it?" And he said, "I like this lake, but that's about the only place I like
in this miserable town."
A: Yeah?
B: Then I said, "Do you mind if I join you?" He looked hard at me for a minute, then his expression seemed to soften, and he said, "Sure." We discovered that we both had a lot in common. We were both only children, we had similar taste in clothes and music, and a similar sense of humor. I felt like it was good fortune or fate or something that we met and became friends.
A: So how did your classmates react when they found out?
B: Well, a lot of my friends turned against me. They stopped asking me out when they went somewhere, people started avoiding me in the lunchroom, and someone even started a rumor that Eric had stolen a
CD player, and the principal found it in Eric's locker.
A: Really? So did he really steal it?
B: He said "No way!" He said that someone must have planted it there. My parents even urged me to distance myself from Eric. But I believed him and I stuck by him despite criticism from my friends and parents.
A: Did he ever clear his name?
B: No. That year was a rough one for him and for me too because almost everyone believed that Eric had stolen and that I had helped him. But it didn't matter. A few of my close friends stuck by me and Eric and we hung out together that year. After graduation we kept in touch and Eric's still a good friend.
A: Wow, that's cool. I guess you found out who your true friends were.
B: Yep.