When No One Is Watching

by Alyssa Cole

I mean, I too get nostalgic when an eighties jam starts playing on the radio, but these motherfuckers really needed to reminisce about owning humans?

People bury the parts of history they don’t like, pave it over like African cemeteries beneath Manhattan skyscrapers.

“Or maybe you’re actually fucking things up when you think you’re fixing them?” Story of my life.

I had, of course, but in the same way I think about the U.S. Postal Service. It exists, and functions, mostly, but I don’t know the nuts and bolts of how things get delivered. When I think of a Black community, the first thing that comes to mind—even if I don’t want it to—is crime. Drugs. Gangs. Welfare. That’s all the news has talked about since I was a kid. Not old people drinking tea. Not complex self-sustaining financial systems that had to be created because racism means being left out to dry.

I look at the clean, reimagined future of the neighborhood; this is what was sold to me and Kim by the realtors. They’d talked of revitalization and changing demographics and I’d nodded along because of course that had nothing to do with me, but I’d still get to reap the benefits. And when there are benefits to be reaped, there’s always someone ready to do some illegal shit to get even more of them.