See Me, Hear Me, Know Me

Words Hurt

Najee, upset and hungry, decides he’s done with the festival and heads over to sit with Makena’s family near Uncle Alex’s food truck. Dad notices Makena’s face and asks what happened. When she tries to brush it off, Mom’s look makes clear dodging won’t work, so Makena tells them everything about the woman who accused Najee of scaring Lexi. Mom, Dad, and Amari react with a mix of shock and fury. Amari calls the woman’s story completely made up and flatly racist, stunned anyone would invent something so ugly about a boy she’d never met.

Mom pulls Makena close and asks if she felt scared. Makena admits it was more confusing than frightening, at least until the woman started calling Najee “that boy,” like he wasn’t even a real person with a real name and a real life.

Dad tells Makena that people do not always treat Black kids fairly, but that is not a reason to stop doing what is right. Mom agrees, proud of how calmly Makena and Najee both handled the whole ordeal. Later, Najee opens up about how much the encounter shook him, explaining that being labeled fake and told he does not count as a person is exactly how the world too often treats Black boys, invisible one moment and threatening the next.

The next day, Makena meets Evette and Maritza at Riverfront, where Evette shows off a tote bag she stitched from an old t-shirt, herself wearing a “Black Girls Rule” sweatshirt. Maritza brings up a ridiculous meme she saw online that reduces someone’s worth to the color of their skin. The three agree it is discrimination, plain and simple. Evette shares that her own family is mixed, Black on one side and White on the other, and that the two sides barely speak since her White grandma judged her Black grandma harshly years ago.

Maritza points out that race is not always visible at a glance, either, since she is mixed-race, too, even though she doesn’t look like it. One of her parents is from Bolivia, the other from Mexico.

In fact, Makena’s post about both black shoes makes the point that there’s more to a person than the color of their skin. Evette agrees that Makena is good at making statements with fashion. Maritza bets that someone has seen the words Makena posted and now wears, and feels stronger because of it.

Makena wonders if the girls are right.