A Change is Bound to Come

Kat

I can’t see. I scratch at my burning eyes relentlessly but it is to no avail. I feel a cool liquid run down my face and I taste milk as I dart my tongue out to unveil the mystery substance. My itching eyes roll back in my head and as I try to force them shut, I wonder whether it is to alleviate the agonizing discomfort in my eyes or to avoid looking at the twisted scene in front of me, and I do not know. 

A hand attaches itself to my shoulder and I realize that I am on the ground. The hand guides me to my feet and I slowly blink open my eyes. It is worse than I thought. There is a man at my feet, I am unsure whether he is dead or alive. The only time I have ever seen a dead body was at my grandfather’s open-casket funeral two years prior. Why somebody would want an open-casket funeral boggles my mind but, alas, I forced myself to walk up to that casket and pay my respects to the man that taught me to never let my voice be silenced, no matter the consequence. This lesson from my late grandfather is the reason I speak out today, the reason I use my voice. 

I hold my hands out in front of me, a comfort, simply to make sure they are still there, to regain my balance and decide what to do next. I hear sirens in the distance and everyone is screaming, but I retain my focus on my hands. 

Allie

I don’t think my thumbs have ever moved faster in my life. Ever. I opened Instagram this morning, as always and my entire feed is flooded with “I can’t breathe”, what does that even mean? Either way, I have not seen a single normal photo. It’s getting redundant and annoying.

I walk into my bathroom to digress. This bathroom is definitely my happy place. My parents let me design it myself and the cool marble tiling really calms me down when I am stressed. “Allie,” my dad calls. I scramble to my feet and peer at my reflection in the shiny mirror,  my dad doesn’t usually address me so this must be important. I quickly run my hands through my bead-head and pad down the plushly carpeted staircase and into the kitchen where my parents await. 

Kat

My hands are starting to look fake. It’s just like when you say the same word over and over again and it starts to lose meaning. My body is starting to lose meaning. I drop my sign and I start to float. 

Somebody shakes my shoulders, I must have that dead, zoning out kind of look in my eyes but the shake jars me back to the ground and I flick my eyes back and forth to assess the scene. There are people everywhere, I’m shaking. My friend Addison is nowhere to be found and I can only hope that she was not unlawfully arrested like so many others who have stepped out of their comfort zones to exercise their first amendment rights to protest peacefully. 

“Kat!” I hear somebody shout. I look around for the source of the sound and I see Addison standing in the street, her sign held over her head like a sun hat. A smile floods my face and I run towards my friend, my protest partner. 

Allie

“Allie, we understand that there are some crazy people doing crazy things right now,” my stone-cold father begins tentatively. 

“And we don’t want you to get involved in any of it, for your own safety sweetie,” my mother cuts in. What are they even talking about? The riots? They know I would never get involved in any of that, I would never associate myself with that kind of a movement, the dirty kind. I mean, destroying property is simply wrong, and I even heard that the protesters have started to tear down statues of our country’s war heroes. Whatever happened to being the greatest nation in the world? I have no idea what this world has come to.

“Our neighbors are both cops, and your uncle Josh is as well. They are very hurt by this movement and they think it is insensitive to the hard work that they put in every day to protect all of us, I think uncle Josh had to stand on the front lines of a protest today, and the protesters started provoking him. I think it got violent,” my mom says casually. 

“Mom, I would never get involved with that,” I reply confidently. 

Kat

Addison and I hold hands as we begin the trek back to Addison’s bright blue Subaru. We sit in the car in silence for a few minutes until the quiet sounds of Addison crying causes me to break the silence.

“I’m sick of protesting this, we should not have to do this. It isn’t fair,” she says. And I have nothing to say because she’s right. She is absolutely right. We sit in silence for the 30-minute drive home, me with my head in my hands and Addison with both hands gripping the steering wheel, her knuckles turning white with the effort. 

At home, I open my phone to a beautiful array of my friends’ Instagram posts, advocating for change. But one post makes my heart skip a beat. Allie DeSouza keeps posting “all lives matter” shit, is she just uneducated? Or does she genuinely not care? I don’t know. 

Allie

I got called out for one of my posts today. Kat called me a racist. I’m not a racist. Is saying “all lives matter” suddenly racist? Anyway, Kat told me that it was like saying all houses matter when one is on fire and then hosing down all of the houses even though only one is on fire. I guess that makes sense. 

Kat

As I get ready for bed, surely to be another sleepless night full of shaky images from the atrocities of today’s world, I get a text, from Allie. Weird. “Kat, I’m sorry if this is totally weird but I thought your reasoning for why we shouldn’t say all lives matter was really interesting, I’d like to learn more about the BLM movement.”

Allie

“Mom, you can’t say all lives matter anymore, it isn’t okay,” I say to my mother before going to bed.

“Allie, what do you mean. You say that all the time and all lives do matter, what is going on?” 

I explain to her what Kat told me and she looks slightly less confused I think. I need to learn more. One: I can’t be labeled as a racist that’s ridiculous. Two: this seems important and I think I am ready to branch out?? I’m sick of my parents controlling my beliefs, I need to be different than them. I don’t want to grow up to be an uppity accountant claiming to care about human rights when, in reality, I don’t. 

Kat

I just got off the phone with Allie. I was explaining to her why we need to keep fighting for equal rights and why equal rights were not established after the civil rights movement of the 60s. I think she is starting to understand and it is so refreshing to see someone change their political beliefs. We need to normalize that. I know it is hard for her because she grew up in such a conservative family but I really think I am starting to open her eyes, I think she’s going to be okay. 

Allie

Today will be my first time ever going to any sort of protest. I can’t wait. My parents don’t know, I told them that I was going to my friend’s pool for the day but I’m getting in some girl Addison’s blue Subaru and I’m going to protest in the city all day. This is the first time I have ever done something with my life, something important. I’m using my privilege, privilege I didn’t even know I had until Kat told me about it. She’s like my mentor on all things human rights. 

Kat

I’m at a protest with Allie. Yes, the same girl who was chanting “all lives matter” just a couple of days ago. I am so incredibly proud of her, she is not the girl she used to be. I feel like I have made a sincere difference in her life and although small, these are the types of changes we need to bring to this world.