Not So Pure and Simple

by Lamar Giles

He usually lurked in the halls, giving people detention for the most minor infractions or yelling at them to go to class. I’d never seen him in a class before.

Plus, that galaxy far, far away is missing some sistahs! Where the black women, bruh?”

comic book. Shuri, issue #1. Black Panther’s sister in her own standalone book. This was unexpected. “It’s about a black woman by a black woman, so I bet you haven’t read it.”

I’d been thinking on the God thing more and more lately, and monstrous stuff happens on His watch all the time. Turn on the news.

I stood, thinking this a good time to slip away. “Sit yo ass down!” they said at the same time. If God ever spoke to me aloud, I imagined it’d sound like that.

“You think you’re nice, Del. You think you’re nicer than Mason. You spent all that time in her church activities, doing pledges and praying, and whatever else you thought she liked. Things that ain’t really you. But, because you were so nice when you were doing that fake shit, she owes you something, right?

Because I know what it’s like for a woman. Doesn’t matter age, looks, what we wear, where we go. There’s always danger, because of, well, you.” You, meaning men.

A city destroyed. A wife turned to salt. All sorts of implications that trash people have used for centuries to justify oppression, and racism, and homophobia, and misogyny.

“Fine. It’s Elsa from Frozen. Okay?” “I knew it. She’s like the whitest one!” “Shut. Up! That song is bars!”

“Batman’s an a-hole, Del.” “You finally read Tower of Babel?” “I did not. I read Kingdom Come. Why do they name so many of the books after Bible stuff?” “Gravitas.”