Quote by Clint Smith

“I saw her, books in hand, trying to avoid the eyes of the children who targeted her. My grandmother, who only wanted books that did not have the pages torn out of them, who only wanted to be able to use the restroom in a bus station without being expected to relieve herself outside like a dog, who only wanted to walk through the world without being consumed with fear that she might be disappeared into the night. I imagined the faces of those white children on the bus, their mouths full of violence, their jaws contorted with callousness when their lips opened, their adolescent brows raised in anticipation of her quiet surrender. I imagined how the laughter must have cascaded among them. Their bellies full of malice. I imagined how their heads jettisoned themselves from the side of the bus, how their small arms clawed over half-opened windows just to throw food at my grandmother in a spectacle of cruelty. These children were not born to hate this way. They had been taught. They had watched their parents and they had watched the world and this is what they had been shown.”

Quote by Clint Smith