Brown Sugar

2

I struggled with my textbooks. It was ridiculous how many I had, in fact, it was so many that my book bag had popped within the first few weeks of school. I had no choice but to carry every book back and forth.

Due to drug busts at schools in our district, we weren't allowed to use the lockers. Kids always tried to smuggle shit in. I fortunately didn't go to a school that had constant shake downs and drug busts, that's the one Hadia went to. I went to the school for the "smart" kids. Even though everyone here was dumb as fuck. And they were still off something more than half the time you saw them. They just has sense enough to conceal whatever they had. 

I made my way into the advanced composition class, and placed my books on the desk as quietly as I possibly could. It didn't work well, and they made a loud thudding sound. The few kids in the classroom rolled their eyes at me. People get mad when you're prepared to do your work. It made no sense.

"Good morning Nadia," The teacher, Mr. Porter greeted.

"Good morning Mr. Porter," I replied with the same enthusiasm. 

I pulled my phone out of my pocket, he didn't really care about using electronics. As long as you did your work he was fine with just about anything you did. He was the cool teacher everybody wanted. He wasn't a strict grader, he curved almost everything and extended due dates, was extremely kind and never yelled at us. He was an extreme liberal, very open minded and socially aware. Even though he was white, he was a black lives matter type of guy. He understood the real world issues. And he never used white privilege to his advantage.

"Had a good weekend?" He asked as he typed away on his laptop.

"It was fine, and yours?"

I was lying. I got yelled at for letting Hadia get drunk at the party we went to, then yelled at more for asking for gas money on Sunday because Hadia rode all of our gas out doing whatever she did over the weekend.

"It was crappy, until I read your essay," He replied with a small smile.

"Seriously?" I asked, my attention piqued.

We were asked to write an essay on our views about systematic racism. And after all of our papers were graded, we'd have a classroom discussion. I was looking forward to it, I was one of the few black kids at this school, and I was ready to fuck some cracker jacks up.

I mostly kept to myself. But my few friends were rather diverse and just as woke as I was.

He nodded his head and I thanked him, getting a compliment when it came to writing in this class was like finding the holy grail. You shouldn't take it lightly. I yearned for an A in this class. He could validate everyone's grade. You earned them in this class. They were never given, or rounded just because he liked you. And I think that's what I liked most.

The tardy bell rang and the stragglers filed into the classroom. Afterward, we immediately began on our daily journal. The question was do you feel like a mistake could lessen your achievements.

A mistake is something we all try our hardest to avoid, but end up making anyways. An achievement, however, is what we all yearn for. Once you have achieved something, that it yours. No one can take that away from you. For instance, falling down won't mean that I'll forget how to tie my shoe. Misspelling one word doesn't mean that I'll forget how to read. When you achieve something, it's in your possession. No mistake can take that away from you.