Promise Boys

by Nick Brooks

As a Black man, you get no benefit of the doubt. You have to be on the right side of everything.

Still, even if he’s innocent, I think this’ll ruin him. I think it’ll traumatize him, and I think that’s the flaw of the system. Once it touches you, you tainted forever, guilty or not.

They’re children. Everyone seems to always forget that. No matter their size. No matter their skin color. No matter their attitude.

Only takes a day in this world to learn that people will see you the way they want to see you, then do what they want to do.

People have their beliefs about what emigrating is like. There’s this idea that it’s easy, that picking up and leaving your home and starting over somewhere new is easy; that learning English is easy. It’s not.

I don’t think people know how terrifying it is to have a gun pointed at you. It’s even worse when it’s a cop because unlike a robbery or something, you know that the person in the uniform can do whatever they want and nobody will say anything. When that gun is pointed at you, it’s scarier because that gun isn’t bound by the same rules.

Girls have to notice everything. Especially ones like me. It’s a survival mechanism. It’s how we keep our heads above water in a world that’s so incredibly dangerous for us. We notice everything, take stock of possible threats, and lock it all in our memory.