One of racism’s harms is the way it falls on the unexceptional Black person who is asked to be extraordinary just to survive—and, even worse, the Black screwup who faces the abyss after one error, while the White screwup is handed second chances and empathy. This shouldn’t be surprising: One of the fundamental values of racism to White people is that it makes success attainable for even unexceptional Whites, while success, even moderate success, is usually reserved for extraordinary Black people.
– Ibram X. Kendi, How to be an Antiracist
so i climb dodge boulders
earn blisters but even
the top of the mountain
is white
— Vivek Shraya, “white dreams,” even this page is white
Salvation is the final book in bell hooks’ Love trilogy. I have very mixedfeelings about the series as a whole, but I’ve been reading a chapter every night right before bed when I’m most exhausted, and find myself grateful for the accessibility and easy flow of her writing. The book is bringing up a lot of emotions in me, honestly. Continue reading ““even the top of the mountain is white””→
Leanne polished off her orange juice with a satisfied sigh and reached across the table for the box of Froot Loops. She frowned and shook it around, the last few pieces rattling around noisily in the bottom. Her brother looked on in silent horror as she overturned the box and they spilled out in a mountain of rainbow-colored dust she stirred into her milk, turning it a light purplish color.
No point in rushing to finish, then. He chewed slowly, resigned, the mouthful of cereal he’d been chomping away at moments before thickening to paste in his mouth. He shot a glance at his mom, who was oblivious, tuned into the morning news and hanging on some stupid story about a prize pig who’d won a blue ribbon. As far as he was concerned, there was a prize pig right there in front of them, forget the one on TV!
Leanne always, always finished first. No matter how fast he ate, she still beat him to seconds. The bus would be there in minutes anyway; he stood up and placed his dishes in the sink while his stupid fat sister wiped away a droplet of milk that rolled down her chin. Ha. Greedy.
He glared sideways at her as she tilted her bowl and finished sucking down the sugar-saturated concoction. She was even more oblivious than their mom.
***
Since Leanne had Art Club after school on Mondays, he always got home first. He wasn’t supposed to go in her room and rarely did, never having reason to, but just remembering the way she’d destroyed the cereal made him livid all over again, the passage of the school day having done nothing to lessen the blow.
An easel was set up beside her desk, where she’d left her giant case of colored pencils out in the open, but her room was otherwise spotless. He rolled his eyes; she was such a neat freak. Even the pencils she’d left out were organized meticulously by shade, in perfect ROY G BIV order. There were hundreds, and it must have taken hours to arrange.
His hands splayed over the cool, smooth, wood, he was seized with a wicked impulse, and rage took over and did the rest. More colorful than Froot Loops, the pencils clashed in violent symphony–must be NICE to always be FIRST and BEST at everything, make straight A’s and always get first pick and be everyone’s FAVORITE and have everything EASY. Why couldn’t I have come first?! It was a plain and simple case of rotten bad luck.
When he was finished, he tried putting them back in their case, but the order was all screwed up–oranges with blues, yellow beside black. It was absolute chaos, the kind she couldn’t stomach (Except when eating, apparently. His English teacher would call that irony.), and he couldn’t help but feel a twinge pleased.
He fled her room and down the hall to his own, presumably to start on homework. But he ended up sitting there at his desk, unable to concentrate on his math problems, tapping the back of a number-two pencil to his chin as he waited for her screams.
She Wants the Diction 