Black Lives Matter

The Enlightenment

Zay's POV
I walked into school and sat in my seat behind Lucas. "In order to understand these movements you must understand both sides." Mr Matthews announced, "we got insight to our protesters yesterday so let's see if our protester can understand the other side. Zay? What would you guess is going through the police's heads when they see you or any black man for that matter?" "Oh come on man do you seriously know no other names?" I asked, "fine, I guess that they look at me and see just another druggie thief. Which makes since because there are a lot of black men in gangs and on drugs and stuff but I feel like we're not all the same and they're just grouping us all together. You know? Not every black man enters a house to rob it. Some just wanna get home. But I do understand that police think that we come from bad neighborhoods, which can definitely be true, but where we come from doesn't define who we are." I told them. Smackle reached her hand out and rubbed my shoulder sympathetically. I saw everyone's heads lowered a bit. I know they never thought about this kind of thing. They didn't need to. They had good stable lives; they never needed to worry about the rest of us.

Maya's POV
I knew this world was unfair but really?  Judging someone by their skin color? Were we stuck in the 1960's still? I can't believe this. You want to go out there and believe that nothing's bad in the world and you want to think that your problems are the worst anyone could ever have. But then you hear stories like these, things you never knew, like the fact that one of your best friends is scared walking to school with his friends because cops could think he's abducting us or trying to sell us drugs or something. It's not right that the people who are sworn in to protect us are the ones who make my friend, who wouldn't hurt a fly, scared for his life. It sucked that he had to go through this. He was at an immediate disadvantage because of something he could never change. He didn't ask to be black. It's not something that he can just get up and walk away from. The fact that he was considered a threat for it was honestly sickening.

Lucas's POV
I mean I knew it was hard for Zay in Texas but I never thought it was this bad. I feel like a horrible friend. Maybe if I had just paid a little more attention I could've stopped this. I'm supposed to be the one protecting him. I let this happen. I was so consumed with my life that I never looked over to see what was up with Zay. I should've taken one minute out of staring at farkle to check on my best friend. My friend who's been with me through everything from the start. He's helped me through everything and now that he needed me I couldn't be bothered. He must hate me. Hell I hate me. How did I let all of this happen. My best friend! The worst part is that I hadn't even noticed it in Texas. How could I have been so oblivious? Whenever he began to show his hands to a cop I'd laugh and tell him he was being paranoid. I never knew. I thought he was just scared that the cop would smell whatever drugs or alcohol we had just or were about to consume. How could I have known?

Smackle's POV
The bell rang and I headed to engineering. "Can I have a pencil?" Charlie asked again. I reluctantly gave him one and soon enough found a note on my desk. "So you and Zay?" I read, "something going on there?" "Why Charlie?" I wrote back, "are you jealous?" I got it back a few seconds later, "do you want me to be?" I tried to hold back my laughter as I turned back to the front. I looked back at Charlie a few times and he would smile at me bigote returning to his work. This boy would be the death of me, that's for sure.

A/N::: Hope you guys liked it! In case you can't tell, we're definitely going to get into Lucas and Zay's Texas connections! Next full on larkle scene is 6 days away(it'll be a fluff scene but I like it). Love you all! Xoxo -Emma

Song-"Four Pink Walls" by Alessia Cara