We Are Not Like Them

by Christine Pride

It kills me how some people want so badly to believe racism is buried beneath layers and layers of history, “ancient history,” they say. But it’s not. It’s like an umpire brushing the thinnest layer of dirt off home plate: it’s right there. Only too often the trauma, the toll of it, remains unknown generation after generation.

You know, there’s a lot I wish I’d said before your grandma passed. Now I’m wondering why we always wait to say things at all. It’s mighty foolish of us to wait for anything. To wait to tell someone we love them or that we’re mad as hell

“All I’m saying is, don’t take your friendship for granted. You have something special, and a whole lotta history. That counts for something. I would hate for y’all to have to wait for something awful to happen to find each other again and then be sick to death at all the time you’ve wasted.

We can trust that we will eventually return to normal, that the strength of our shared history is enough to fall back on, to carry us through. I allow myself to feel hopeful that this is exactly what’s happening right now. And that after all of this, we could become even closer.