The Black Kids

What do you do when the people you love no longer feel like home?

You can't tell people to pull up on bootstraps when half of them never had any boots to begin with, never even had the chance to get them.

Because a bunch of dudes beating on one dude who was already on the ground until he's brain damaged and broken is wrong. Because prosecuting people differently for the same exact crimes because of skin color is wrong. Because some people being able to buy private islands while other people sleep outside on the ground is wrong. Because knowingly destroying poor communities with drugs let in to fund wars against foreign regimes is fundamentally wrong. Because even though you finally enact a Civil Rights Act not even thirty years ago, it doesn't erase centuries of unequal wealth, unequal access, unequal schooling, unequal living conditions, unequal policing. You can't tell people to pull up on bootstraps when half of them never had any boots to begin with, never even had the chance to get them. Or when you let people burn whole, thriving black communities to the ground and conveniently forget about it. Because maybe the problem isn't only with "bad" people, maybe the problem is with the whole system.

We all sew a few sequins on our stories to make them shine brighter.

Sometimes being different means hiding pieces of yourself away so other people's mean can't find them.

When you've known somebody too long, it's like they're talking to a version of you from years ago, even though you've updated all your software. You're the same program, except also you're not. It's a little easier around somebody who doesn't know you as well, who doesn't remember that one bad haircut from fourth grade, or the first kid you had a crush on. Somebody who doesn't feel comfortable calling your parents by their first names. Somebody who doesn't know your parents' names at all.

Sadness for them is a cause and effect, not simply a way to be.

Morgan gives me a dirty look. I know that she resents me and resents being here. She thinks I don’t care. But it’s not that; it’s that there’s so very much to care about, so much to feel, and instead of trying to sort out what’s in my head, sometimes I don’t want to feel any of it at all.

Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver, the other is gold. A circle’s round, it has no end, that’s how long I will be your friend.

I wonder if growing up in a war zone disarms you so you can't even tell why your heart races, just the constant awareness that it does.

Latasha was black. Latasha was a girl. Latasha was my age. She went into a liquor store to buy orange juice, and the Korean woman at the counter thought she was stealing. She wasn’t. They got into a fight, and as Latasha tried to walk away, the woman at the counter shot her in the back of the head. Over orange juice. Her killer got probation, community service, and a five hundred dollar fine.

Sometimes it's hard being a girl, and it's hard being black. Being both is like carrying a double load, but you're not supposed to complain about it. There are so many things you have to remember about how to be.

On Friday nights, before I got old enough to make bad decisions at other people’s houses, I used to sit with Lucia as she got ready to make hers.

We have to walk around being perfect all the time just to be seen as human. Don't you ever get tired of being a symbol? Don't you ever just want to be human?

They don't fucking see us even when they're looking right at us.

I'm beginning to think that's kind of what being an adult is. Learning that sometimes people are a little bit wrong, but not for the reasons you think they are, and also a little bit right, and you try to take the good with the bad.

He looked like a bullied kid turned bully, the kind of kid who’d been too big, too poor, or too dumb and was now more than happy to pull over anybody he deemed too anything. In our case, too black. “Why are you pulling me over?” my mother asked. Her hair looked a little crazy, and she smoothed it down quickly.

It's not just about Rodney. It's about all of us.

Sometimes when you want to disappear, it's easiest to hide in music.

most white boys are taught that when they open their mouths to speak, the rest of us will shut up and listen, but when we went to get our corsages last week, Trevor told me he was the middle kid of five, which I somehow never knew about him. Now I think maybe this is why he’s always so loud. He’s just trying to hear his own voice.

All of which, I suppose, isn’t entirely untrue, but it’s also not entirely true. We all sew a few sequins on our stories to make them shine brighter.

started, I should’ve done something to stop it.

Sometimes the act of growing up cleaves you apart, and even though you walk through the world made of the same stuff, you can't quite make your way back to the start. There's too much matter between you.

People glorify protest when white kids do it, when it’s chic, frustrated Parisian kids or British coal miners or suffragettes smashing windows and throwing firebombs at inequality. If white kids can run around wearing their bodies like they’re invincible, what do the rest of us do? Those of us who are breakable? Those of us who feel hopeless and frustrated and tired and sick of feeling this way again and again? Sometimes, we just go ahead and break ourselves.

Be more. Yes, that’s it! Practice! Dream! Rise! Wait, not so high, girl! Those stars, they aren’t meant for you.

Sometimes it’s hard being a girl, and it’s hard being Black. Being both is like carrying a double load, but you’re not supposed to complain about it. There are so many things you have to remember about how to be.

We have to be better. We have to turn the other cheek. We have to counter hate with love. Except when we don’t. It’s like my sister said: “We have to walk around being perfect all the time just to be seen as human. Don’t you ever get tired of being a symbol? Don’t you ever just want to be human?

I’m Black, but my Black is different from that of those rioters on TV.