Josie, 16

Being Black Again and Again

It’s the same thing always. Us black kids don’t wake up feeling black, but many days are spent being made to feel different and dirty. What happened to George Floyd was very familiar. In my life it’s always been the same thing going on, it’s just the faces that change.

At school it comes and goes in waves. Sometimes black and white get along, usually we just tolerate each other. With all the protests lately I wonder where have all of them been in the past, those same people who are marching now. Maybe they have just woken up to what’s been happening forever. To that I say, “it’s about time.” If I ever used to bring up issues like Black Lives Matter, my few white friends would usually tell me to chill. I never had the guts to tell them back that there’s nothing “chill” about being black in America. Is anything really ever going to change? Who knows.