“Picture a human in your mind.”
His lanky frame—somehow just a couple inches shorter than mine—shuffles along the sidewalk.
“Why?” he mutters
“Because I asked you to.” That phrase still carries weight with him, thankfully.
“Ok,” he sighs, tilts his head back a bit.
“Is the human a man or a woman?” I ask.
“A man.”
“What color is the human?”
“…white,” he says finally.
“Why do you think that is?”
He gaze turns down to his shoes as he walks. He says nothing.
We continue forward for a few steps. I feel him lean into me, hear him sniff.
I stop and turn to him. I take his damp face in my hands.
“I do the same thing, baby. Lots of people do. It’s not your fault. Everything is set up to make us think that way.”
He peeks at me through the shock of blonde hair perpetually in his face.
“So, what do we do?” The words come out quivering.
“Better,” I say, wrapping my arm around his shoulder and steering us forward, towards home.
“We try to do better.”
Valerie Catrow 