A Necessary Struggle: Fall Semester

Part 25

Sunday was quiet and crept to an end. After Harmony drug everyone to church with her, they all grabbed lunch at Bethany's Chicken Shack and caught a movie. A decision that they deliberated about in the lobby of AMC for fifteen minutes; Samuel wanted to see Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates; Trevor, Cairo, and Harmony wanted to see The Purge: Election Year; Safiya and Lela wanted to see Tarzan; and Alyssa could careless. Whichever movie they picked she was going to fall asleep on so in the land of democracy The Purge won. After the movie, they said their goodbyes and went back to their residences waiting for Monday to roll around.

And roll around it did. Harmony couldn't get a word in as she sat backward in her desk chair with intent eyes shifting back and forth from Sean and Chris. Tension clouded the A/C chilled lecture room.

"They killed him in cold blood." Chris seethed poking the pencil's eraser on the desk.

The tepid coffee burned Sean's throat as he quickly swallowed it, "He had a gun."

"In the waistband of his jeans! His hands were up." Will demonstrated holding his hands in the air.

"Police Brutality is rapid in America." Richard sat up straight. "You can find millions of videos on YouTube proving that fact."

"They're not crazed, gun-toting enforcers. Protecting and serving." Lisa said.

"Protecting and serving who! Because it's not us." Will shouted his caramel cheeks sharply reddening. "I got thrown up against a fence and asked why are you in this neighborhood two blocks from by house. My house! Has that happened to you?" Sean slowly shook his head and Kirsten looked down at her lap.

"Yeah, Bernard Lewis did run." Chris clarified. Her cocoa eyes were strained from watching too much news coverage into the wee hours of the night, " But does the constitute being shot in the neck. Yeah, he did steal a car. But is that a crime punishable by death. People do far worst in the country but we do something and it's okay to shoot us like a dog in the street." She roughly wiped a rolling tear from her cheek.

"I didn't say it was right." Sean shifted in his seat turning toward Professor Russell who stood against his desk. "I...if you don't comply..."

"You can get shot in the back." Will rose to his feet and propped his body against the wall, mushing his Afro in the back. "Well, not you...but for me. I would get shot in the back. You would get tased, arrested, and taken to jail."

"People fear what they don't know," Jason spoke with his English accent. "Although I don't wear the garb, I'm a Muslim with Syrian roots and if I was pulled by the police they would think I'm a terrorist. I have to think about that. Make sure I say the right things. So, Will I understand."

"No, you don't! You don't understand what we go through." Will pointed to himself, Chris, and Harmony. "You don't know our struggle. Our pain. You will never know."

Lisa dropped her hand from her mouth as her blonde hair shined under the sunrays that flowed through the windows, "Then tell us."

Will bit his lips while Chris studied the stillness of her pencil on her desk. Harmony took up the baton to break the silence but her emotions strangled her words.

"Um..." Harmony inhaled a nervous breath. "I don't want to...."

Professor Russell stood up straight slipping his hand is the pockets of his grey trousers, "Go ahead Harmony...speak what's on your mind."

Harmony nodded then turned back to her peers. "I borrowed my cousin's, Taylor..." She smiled while Lisa and Richard gingerly laughed remember when the teen came to one of their classes. "...Copy of Higher Learning and the line that stood with me was when Ice Cube's character told Omar Epps' character 'we're behind enemy lines'. Its moments like this that reminds us of where we came from. Cargo carried in ships, chained together like sardines. And I know people always say 'Slavery's over. Why do we always have to go there' and yes, slavery is over. But its side effects still last. Prejudice. Discrimination. Redlining. Profiling. For you..."