Picturing Success

I. Think of a Polaroid, with its thick, white border around my snapshot of Kadeem, little boy with shiny onyx skin squatting behind white bars on my uncle’s porch by himself. Face pressed hard to the wood, he reminds me of the near half a million* Black men sitting in cold cement cells barred in isolation by oppression idleness and self-defeat; their potential to achieve on lock down by those same bars The World wants him to stand behind later in his life. II. “SMILE!”… quick click, burst of light. I turn it around to view 10 megapixels of family gathered before a turquoise horizon. Same little black boy with the shiny onyx skin, all grown up, stands in front. The pearl white cap and gown set is the perfect contrast against his complexion. Reminiscent, I picture an old Polaroid and smile. The photo just taken, displays a Black man in a fight to slay historical lies-- yet winning. And as my grandmother shouts, “It’s time to celebrate!” I wonder: Damn, Polaroids... Do they even still make those?