Small Great Things

by Jodi Picoult

Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are. —BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

Justice, indifference

Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced. —JAMES BALDWIN

Making change

love has nothing to do with what you’re looking at, and everything to do with who’s looking.

It just goes to show you: every baby is born beautiful. It’s what we project on them that makes them ugly.

A boy like Edison. I know what she is saying, even if she’s careful not to spell it out. There are not many Black kids in the high school, and as far as I know, Edison is the only one on the Highest Honors list. Comments like this feel like paper cuts, but I’ve worked with Marie for over ten years now, so I try to ignore the sting. I know she doesn’t really mean anything by it.

Corinne is one of those people for whom life is just the space between crises.

For a moment, I honestly don’t understand. And then it hits me with the force of a blow: they don’t have a problem with what I’ve done. Just with who I am.

Look at where they came from, in Africa. There’s no civilized government. They’re all murdering each other in the Sudan. The Hutus are killing the Tutsis. And they’re doing

it in our country too. The gangs in our cities—that’s just tribal warfare among niggers.

Makes it SOUND logical even though it's horrific Angry ignorant people convinced

But like me, she’s aware that Whites have become the minority in this country and that we’re always under attack; we have to blend in.

WTF How could she even WRITE this?!

There is a hierarchy to hate,

But even more than any of these groups, the people you always hate the most are antiracist White folks. Because they are turncoats.

Oh!” The patient turns bright red. “I just assumed…” That she is in charge. Because even though Virginia is ten years younger than me, she is white.

For a long moment Ruth is silent, and it surprises me. Most people in her situation would grab on to the lifeline offered by a public defender. This woman, however, feels like she’s trying to determine if I’m going to measure up.

“First,” Kennedy says evenly, “you might very well have been indicted no matter what race you were. Grieving parents and hospitals that are trying to keep their insurance premiums from going through the roof create a perfect recipe for finding a fall guy.

I lift my chin and stare at Kennedy. “What do you think about being white?” She shakes her head, her face blank. “I don’t think about being white. I told you the first time we sat down—I don’t see color.” “Not all of us have that privilege.” I reach for the Band-Aids and shake them across all her charts and folders and files. “Flesh color,” I read on the box. “Tell me, which one of these is flesh color? My flesh color?” Two bright spots bloom on Kennedy’s cheeks. “You can’t blame me for that.”

I tell them this: the part of the brain, physiologically, that allows us to blame everything on people we do not really know is the same part of the brain that allows us to have compassion for strangers.