Trigger warning: Racism

Of Negros and White Boys

She's leaned against one of the pillars that held up their school, watching the people rush in below, carrying banners and signs, and their hearts beating with a fire, a fire for a cause that he could never possibly imagine. And how could he when he was just another wealthy white boy? He'd been raised in a suburb dripping with wealth, and it showed now as he stood in his casual school attire, which included a pair of slacks which had been tailored to his body.

She stood watching them, a smile playing across her face as her curls were blown into her face a bit, and she brushed them aside.

"Why aren't you joining them?" He asked before he could help himself, and she turns around, as surprised with his lack of insult as well as him being there.

"I prefer to watch," she grinned once more, and bent her head a bit to watch them, showing her point. "I know we've already won here."

"Won?" He laughs derisively, his eyes scanning over her skin, darker than his own, and yet not black. No, it was a brown, a brown of cinnamon and chocolate and the liquor his father wouldn't let him touch yet. "How have you won?'

"The people here allow me to serve them milk at the grocery store. Harry," here his lips tore into a frown at the name of her friend, another Negro, "is free to play with the children who live down the road from him, the people don't object to my family joining them at the pub. We've won, because we're still breathing. It beats all of you down."

He was included in that you. He was an oppressor, dark and angry and violent in her eyes. He was one of many who had committed heinous crimes against her people. He was one of the people who had enslaved her family, enslaved her. He was one of the people who beat the fourteen year old boy caught holding hands with the mayors girl the town over. He was one of the people who laughed at her when she dared show her face at school, dare say I am a Negro and proud. He was an oppressor, and all of his life he had allowed cruelties against her people to be committed.

His breathing came out heavy and tears rushed to his eyes, which he quickly banished (he could feel his fathers belt already), and instead he watched her laugh, as a little girl viciously tore down a poster proclaiming that Negros would not be allowed to the school dance.

"How - how did you put up with it?" He asked, and then inwardly curses himself as she turned around, her eyes wide, and loving even as her own people, even as his people allowed their own to be lighted with fear and anger and torment. She studies him for a moment, her head cocked to a side, and allows her eyes to sweep over his pale hair and pale skin and pale eyes. So different to her own.

Just as he thinks she won't answer (and why would she?), and he thinks about turning around and going back to Pansy, who last he heard was screeching at the indignity of it all, she opens her mouth. "As the oppressed do. We go to bed with the names of our victims on our lips, and wake to find them in our heart. We turn what the world sees as our weaknesses, a cause to humiliate us and torment us into a shield, a blanket, that will protect us and dissolve any words that can bring us harm. We find our strength in our pain, because we take that and turn it into a spear, which can aim only for a heart, and we grasp that spear and we line it for the oppressors heart."

And she smiles, and it no longer seems as innocent and naive as he always thought. Instead she seems like a girl who has seen too much for her sixteen years of age, and he feels innocent in contrast to her pain, which is rather funny, because he always thought it was rather the opposite.

And then she walks away, and joins in a chorus, a repetition of I Have A Dream, with those whose skin was lighter and darker than her own, which merged with her own, as they turned into the same type of people - people of hope and rage and a yearning of retribution.

I have no experience in racism first hand, being an average white girl, so you know, I didn't allow myself to write from the point of view of the oppressed. Sorry if anyone was triggered by this. Not sure if I should continue or leave be. Anyway, much thanks for reading and please do review! xx Louisa