The Girls

The white girl wakes up, gets dressed, and gets herself to school. The black girl does the same. The white girl gets an A, eats her lunch, and gets herself back home. The black girl does the same. The white girl does her homework, eats some dinner, and finally goes to sleep. The black girl does the same. Almost. Because while the white girl is dressed in a new dress—clean, pressed neatly, and as white as her skin—the black girl wears her sister’s dirty one, because her mother can’t afford new cloth. The white girl gets to eat her breakfast. The black girl doesn’t. And when the white girl gets on the bus, the black girl stands and gives her the seat. The two girls pass each other in the hallways, only once. The white girl calls her a Negro and laughs. The black girl says nothing and cries. The cafeteria, of course, is just like the bus. The white boys and girls eat and the nicer lunch tables near the windows, and the black boys and girls sit in the back. The white girl rides the bus back home, just like she does every day. But the black girl doesn’t. She walks instead. She figured that walking would be better than being told to move and laughed at. The white girl does her homework, eats some dinner, and finally goes to sleep. The black girl does her homework alone, with no help. Her parents are too busy working two jobs each to help with algebra. The black girl watches on her street, during dinner, as the riots start. It started out peaceful, but it’s not peaceful anymore. She watches, anxiously, as the dogs come out and the tear gas blows through the air. Her mother takes her away from the windows, but that girl knows her brother is out there, out there with the dogs and the gas and all the people. The black girl waits for hours, eating a little dinner, before comes the knock on the door. The black girl's brother is beaten, bloody, and bruised. The black girl knows what the gas did to his eyes. She knows her brother might never see again. And after it's all over, after hours and hours of crying, she finally goes to sleep. But that's the difference between the black girl and the white girl. While the white girl sleeps, the black girl dreams. Dreams the same dream a black man dreamt, the dream he shared with the world. She doesn't dream that she will be like the white girl, or the white girl will be like her. She dreams that they would will be like each other. She dreams of a dream where she and other little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. For right now, the white girl and the black girl are not the same. But one day, they will be.