Left, Right.

    Left, right. One foot in front of the other. That’s what the little Black girl thinks as she walks past what remains of the tomato she’d dodged only moments before. She didn’t want that bloody red on her white dress. But she’ll take the tomato splatter over the rocks any day. God, she hates when they throw rocks. All she wants to do is go to school. A school that can give her the best education possible, even if it is with White kids. She’s really smart for her age, already reading books from the colored library down the street. So she knows that the word painted on the wall right above her head is far from a compliment.

    “Nigger.” The people in the crowd call her that, too. She doesn’t know why. Her mama says that these people are just scared of her and what she can do. Scared of what, though? She wouldn’t hurt a fly, but the people in that crowd wouldn’t think twice about tearing her into pieces. That’s why those big men walk with her everyday. To make sure she’s safe. They can’t protect her from the words, though. And those hurt the most.

    Fast forward to a time in which this ignorance shouldn’t persist. The year is 2015. A Black girl that’s not so little roams the halls of her predominantly White school. She smooths out the nonexistent wrinkles of her white sundress. No need to give them something else to talk about. They can say a lot about her- and they do- but they can never call her sloppy. The rocks are verbal assaults now; the same taunt whispered behind her in class when she talks with a teacher about her recent letter from Harvard.

    “Affirmative action.” No one thinks she’s smart enough to receive a letter like that on just merit alone. Not the Black girl. Her grandmother tells her not to worry about them, but being strong is hard. All she wants is to go to school. A school that will give her the best education possible, so that one day, she can prove everyone wrong. But until she can claw her way out of this place that’s become her personal hell, she has to keep moving with her head held high. Left, right. One foot in front of the other.

Just a little something I wrote based on Norman Rockwell's painting, "The Problem We All Live With.' Would love your thoughts!