The Voting Booth

by Brandy Colbert

Things my parents say this country has been fighting over for decades: healthcare, gun control, climate change, social justice.…Things that should have been solved decades ago.

My parents and I had just celebrated Juneteenth with some of their friends—something I hadn’t even mentioned to Alec because I had a strong feeling he didn’t know what it was, and sometimes I got tired of explaining my Blackness.

First of all, blue and green people don’t exist, so that’s a ridiculous statement. And a hundred and fifty years of freedom doesn’t erase four centuries of bondage and oppression, Alec. Black people weren’t even free when the Declaration of Independence

“Nah, got up early and went to the place I’ve been voting for the last thirty years, and can you believe it was closed up? Nobody there, no sign. Spent half the day making all these phone calls to find out the city closed it and I had to come here instead.” He shakes his head. “Flores Hills Senior Center

Marva groans. “What is wrong with people? We’re either too Black or not Black enough.

“You had to be twenty-one then, and people weren’t happy ’bout that, since you could

And that’s when I know. It’s over. This whole time he was telling me who he was, bit by bit, and I refused to see it. Or believe him.

I gave him that freedom he wanted, but I should’ve seen that he could never truly be free. And I…I’m a Black man. It was my job to teach him what that meant in this world, how much more dangerous it was for him, and I failed. I failed him. I’m doing the best I can to protect you two. I’m sorry if my anger is too much for you, but I’m not going to lose another child.”

“Dad…telling Ida to give up activism is like telling me to give up drums at this point. It’s too late. She’s already an activist. It’s what she believes in. It’s her therapy, helping people. Just like music is mine.”

“That’s what people want—for us to be too scared to stand up for ourselves and what we believe in. I think that’s more dangerous than trying to change things.

“You were always there,” she says, tilting her head to the side. “You know that, right? Even before Julian was gone. I know he was, like, the world to you, but…” She pauses, glancing down at the ground before she looks at me again. “That’s what you are to me.

Black boys never really get to be boys. He told Julian that if he was stopped by a cop, by foot or by car, he was to never talk back. That, if he was on foot, he should keep his hands up and in clear view, away from his pockets;

that he should do whatever it took to stay alive. Not safe. Alive.

“Bad things. Things Black men and boys get blamed for all the time, even if they didn’t do them.”

But today has been the biggest surprise of my eighteen years.