my first memory of race

I was six years old and in first grade. I attended an elementary school made up of mostly hispanics and whites (each class had exactly two black male students as if there was a quota). I was friends with a classmate Bartoz who had been born in Poland and immigrated to the U.S. We were standing together in the lunch line one day and and Bartoz turned to me and said "You're a nigger". He didn't say it with any hatred or hostility; it was as if he had been told that black and nigger were interchangable. I responded "You're a polock" in the same nonchalant tone. I had learned the term from my older brothers. There was a teacher's assistant standing next to us the whole time. Her name was Mrs. Zajek and she was also polish. She escorted me to the principal's office but didn't bring Bartoz. I was lectured on the negativeness of racial slurs and racism, but Bartoz was spared. When I said that he had called me a nigger, Mrs. Zajek said she hadn't heard that, which is very unlikely. She wanted me punished because what I said had personal meaning to her. That was my first experience with race.