Dear Diary,

Today is a neutral day- Micah isn’t as annoying as usual, in fact, he smiled at me this morning, instead of the normal glare of disgust. It’s the end of the long, dry summer vacation in Texas and we have run out of things to quarrel over!

Things have been odd between Ma and Pa, it’s like they don’t love each other anymore, but I know their feelings for each other will get better. In fact, tonight they are going on a date night! Although they have been going out at night for the past few weeks….a lot of nights and every time Pa comes back with his arms covered in bruises and Ma looks pale.

At first I presumed that they were going out together to spend romantic time together but I now know differently. They aren’t going out to fight for their relationship but the relationships between the different colours in our community (apparently).

I have seen racism but Micah has no clue. I’ve seen it on the news, hundreds of thousands of black people protesting for their rights. When I was younger I thought my skin was beautiful, now I just feel that it is a heavy, dark, burden, just because of its colour. Ma says that these are the best years of a person’s life, but right now I feel more lost than ever. I may not know exactly what my parents are doing out there, but I have a good image of it in my mind from watching all those news reports on TV.

Better times to come,

Kitty

31st August 2020

Dear Diary,

I have finally got some answers! Though, I had to sneak into my parent’s room to get them. I hope I didn’t get spotted by Micah….that would be the end of me. There is bad news and REALLY bad news, I’ll start with the bad news. On Pa’s side of the bed, was a newspaper containing all the answers to my ever expanding list of questions, but I didn’t have time to read all of it. The information I did manage to get hold of however, was that there are protests for black people like me every night. Pa says police are against us along with practically every white person. It’s worse than I imagined. The picture on the front cover showed lots of white police men and women holding guns at the small army of black people. It broke my heart just to see people as bad or as good as each other turning against people (in their opinion) with the wrong colour skin. That’s the bad news…..I know what you’re thinking, what could be any worse than the fact that innocent people with black skin are being slaughtered and abused? Now the REALLY bad news. On Ma’s vanity, hidden behind what seemed like endless bottles of light brown hair dye, was the most horrific thing… bleaching cream!. The brand was called ‘White Shine’, it sickened me to the core, and the description was even worse:

Smooth, luxurious, body cream, apply to skin sparingly for a beautiful, pale complexion that everyone will be talking about! White shine is the 2nd most effective bleaching cream available today, your skin will be transformed in minutes to something of a dream!

How could my mother use this? I don’t know whether to feel betrayed or sorry for her. I didn’t want to be overly cruel, so I hid the cream under a loose floorboard in Micah’s room. Ma probably doesn’t want us to know because Pa is so proud of the colour of his skin, he would jump out of a window if he heard that Ma was using bleaching cream!

2nd September 2020

Better times to come,

Kitty

Dear Diary,

7th September 2020

It’s the first day of school after a long and tiresome summer break. But today wasn’t as fun as I had imagined it would be. I was looking forward to seeing Sam and getting out of the house. Everything was going as it normally would; getting dressed, packing schoolbag, doing hair. Then when I got to school everything was peculiar. The Head Teacher (Mr Cleveland) seemed to have lost his mind and changed the school seating policy. Apparently he feels that white people need to make a stand and fight back against the Black Rights Movement. All the lessons were different, as I was assigned to a certain side of the classrooms. In math class, we get to sit next to whoever we want to, I would usually sit next to my best friend, Sam. When I started to notice that black kids were being separated from white kids I had to tell Sam. Sam isn’t the brightest girl and she didn’t get it at first but she later noticed the pattern too. I was OUTRAGED, I couldn’t believe that I was being separated from my best friend in lessons just because she had white skin and I didn’t! The same thing had happened in Micah’s kindergarten too and on the news were black people protesting in New York because their kids were separated in class.

Pa was FURIOUS when he heard. He got up, put his coat on and stormed out. Then Ma called Granny over, when she heard that Granny would be ten minutes, she herself threw her coat on and ran after Pa.

I feel so lost and empty like I never belonged in this world. I feel figuratively trapped in my own skin. Oh Diary, I forgot to mention that Sam’s mom doesn’t want her seeing me and Sam never replies to my texts now. I even saw her hanging out with Jenny Smith, pretending like she didn’t know me. I have lost my best friend, my proper education and my feeling of humanity. I feel like there is a landslide inside of me but I’m trapped in my skin and I can’t escape it.

Wishing for better times to come,

Kitty xxx

By HEIDI, 11

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