Black Boy

XVII.

Friday: after school

"You have a C in English! What is this?" Alice's dad yelled, his thick Kenyan accent filling the room.

"Baba, it's just a progress report. I'll bring my grade up, I promise," Alice pleaded.

"I didn't come to this country for my daughter to make poor grades," he yelled, "The extracurricular activities are taking away from your studies. Go to your room and come up with the ones you're quitting."

"But baba," she began.

"I don't want to hear it."

Alice's dad migrated to America from Kenya during the 80s because of unemployment and political instability in his home country. He spent years studying to become a doctor then married Alice's mother who is also Kenyan. Both of her parents, like most immigrant parents, take education very seriously and have placed a lot of pressure on Alice to succeed academically. Her father always says no one wants a doctor who made Cs and he has made it very clear that she will become a doctor, nothing else is acceptable. Alice, however, wants to work for the United Nations and do humanitarian work, which her father has no clue about. While applying to colleges, she decided to choose pre-med and plans on changing her major once accepted to a school.

Alice sat at her desk with tears rolling down her face while trying to figure out a way to stay in her activities and bring up her grade.

"This is impossible."

▼▲▼

The sounds of Stevie Wonder danced through Ravyn's room as she wrote about her day in her powder blue journal. This is her way of getting over things. She'd make mental notes throughout the day then pour everything out on the pages. Most of her entries included things she would've said in the moment if her shyness didn't get the best of her.

After writing about the day's events and finishing her homework, Ravyn sat in her blue beanbag chair and began reading Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye, the latest addition to her black girl library that Shayla helped her start. Ravyn has her heart set on being an author, one of the greatest of course. But, to be the best one must study the best which is why she has been filling her bookcase with stories, essays, poetry, and prose written by black women.

"What are you doing?" Ravyn's dad asked while entering her room.

"Just reading," she folded down the page.

"You always in here reading. Why don't you go outside and play like a regular kid?"

"Dad, I'm seventeen, nobody my age plays," she laughed.

"You still need some sun girl, looking all pale."

"Fine," she giggled then grabbed her booked and marched outside where she took a seat on the porch then continued reading.

Ravyn is definitely a daddy's girl. She and her dad are super close, mainly because her mom works full time as a police officer and her older brother has a family of his own. Her dad, on the other hand, is a freelance journalist so he does a lot of work from home.

The gentle breeze of the November winds turned the pages of her book, which she stopped reading to watch the kids across the street jump into the giant pile of leaves that they spent hours raking up. Ravyn's buzzing phone stole her attention from the children.

Tutee #3-you busy saturday?*

▼▲▼
*tutee is someone who is being tutored

thanks for reading!

don't forget to comment, vote and moisturize✨