We Rip the World Apart

Kareela

The bus ride to the Black Lives Matter meeting takes us over the Macdonald Bridge, into Dartmouth, and through to Preston. It’s a long ride, one I’ve never been on before, and Jasmine gasps when I admit this.

“Why would I?” I shift in my seat. “I finished my schooling in Halifax. Now I work there.”

“Oh. K.” Jasmine shakes her head. “You’re about to get an introduction.”

I raise a brow as the bus stops in what looks like the middle of nowhere. Jasmine gives the little shake of her head that means Don’t worry, I got you .

We step down from the bus and onto a gravel shoulder, with no houses discernible in either direction. “How is this even—”

“We’re here.”

I turn to see Jasmine, phone to her ear, hip out, a grin on her face.

“Get us first…yeah, yeah. Pleeeease. ” She rolls her eyes then chuckles, a laugh seemingly for me rather than the person on the other end of the line.

She hangs up, the grin increasing. “You were so scared.”

“What? No, I—”

“Yeah. You were so scared. Like, what is this homegirl up to, some kind of Get Out shit?”

“Get out—what?”

Jasmine rolls her eyes again. “Sometimes, , I swear, it’s like you grew up under a rock.”

Before I can respond, a car speeds over the hill to our left, slows, then stops. The back door swings open. Jasmine bends over to look through the front window. “Hmm.” She gives cut-eye to the young woman in the passenger seat, then steps into the back, motioning for me to follow. “,” she says, as she’s buckling in, “this is my cousin, Dwayne.”

Dwayne clears his throat. “And Sasha, his girlfriend.”

Sasha turns, a sweet smile on her face. Her weave, shiny and smooth, swishes in front of her face like a fan. “Jasmine doesn’t like me.”

Dwayne reaches over to squeeze Sasha’s leg. “Jasmine likes everyone. She’s just jealous you always beat her out in—”

Jasmine knocks the seat. “See me spilling your business, D? ’Cause I could. Just watch. And don’t be trying to tell anyone how I am or am not. You don’t know me.”

“I only changed your diapers.”

“Once!” Jasmine leans back, eyes rolling, arms over her chest. “He messed it up, too, Ma said. Gave me a rash.”

“I was six!”

“Excuses.”

Sasha and Dwayne laugh. I try not to but can’t help a grin. Minutes later, Dwayne pulls into a driveway with four cars already in it and another seven or eight lining the street in front of a large time-worn house that may not even be from the last century.

“We usually meet in the North End,” says Dwayne, “but renovations.”

I nod as I step out of the vehicle, the thick scent of pine and burning wood hitting my nostrils.

“So next time,” says Jasmine, looking back with a wink as she makes her way up the driveway, “it won’t be so far to come. But tonight”—she does a little hop—“is gonna be way more fun.” Through the ground-floor windows, people appear and disappear. Voices and laughter carry on the evening breeze. My steps hesitate as Tanisha’s accusations come back to me— You trying to act like you one of us— and the implication behind those words.

Tonight, I want to fit.

The rally was great. I move up the driveway, nearing the door. The restaurant, too. I felt welcomed. Not like I belonged, exactly, but welcomed. Though, there they knew about Antony. Of course, probably most will here, too. Some may even know more about what happened to him, and why, than me.

We step into a wide, open foyer, with faces of smiling children on the wall and furniture that’s likely older than me. Voices and laughter travel around us. The crowd is mostly young—forty and under, though a handful of older people are spaced throughout the rooms. A woman I recognize from the rally and restaurant, with the most fantastic dreads I’ve ever seen—coiled on her head in a way that suggests chaos and careful control—stands against one wall of the living room, with a couch and collection of armchairs, kitchen chairs, and folding chairs angled toward her. She rings a vintage-looking kitchen bell, and within moments, the voices and moving bodies cease.

Her posture is that of royalty, though her words, her tone, are casual, friendly, inviting. I try to focus on what she’s saying, but she’s going over the minutes—items I know little about that can’t compete with the desire to scope out the faces in the room, wonder what it is, exactly, that’s brought each one here. I notice, too, the shades. A few are lighter than me. One woman could pass, though I can see she has Black in her. I shift my gaze, aware of how many times people have looked at me the way I’m looking at her now, and how much I hated it.

The voice of the woman at the front is replaced with a deeper one, and I turn my head to see Carson. It’s not until he speaks that I realize there was quiet chatter before. Now, the room is truly silent, every head turned. He talks about a mission. A calling. About what brings us here tonight, unites us, what should: the dismantling of all forms of anti-Black racism, the liberation of Blackness, the importance of Black healing, the freedom to love and self-determine and live—in safety.

It’s this last point that sticks with me as that promise to my mother rings in my ears. The desire to keep me safe is what prompted it, despite so much that now indicates she couldn’t care less.

But before I can sink into the complex feelings of being here, Carson moves on to a more specific mission. One I’ve heard plenty about, but I’m not sure I fully understand. I lean forward, arms on my crossed knees as he talks about the billions of dollars that go to police services across the country, the routine surveillance of Black and Indigenous people, the daily harm and injustices: the unwarranted cardings and arrests, the beatings, the murders.

An agonizing buzz thrums through my body. I stiffen at Jasmine’s hand on my leg, try to ignore the all-too-familiar tsunami of grief that threatens. Carson’s gaze meets mine, barely, before it travels on.

This is why I didn’t want to be here. This is why I said no every other time Jasmine asked. But despite the despair that accompanied me at the rally, there was also the joy, the connection, the yearning that maybe, just maybe, change would come.

“All across the country,” continues Carson, “for people of color, the simple act of stepping out of our own front doors is one that involves danger and fear of being harassed by police. Heck”—he raises his arm—“we don’t even need to step out the door. They target us in our homes. Our beds.”

A murmur of agreement sounds through the crowd. I’m staring so hard at Carson—afraid of letting my gaze travel anywhere else, of seeing the eyes that are probably looking my way—that my vision blurs. I blink, try to focus again on Carson’s words as he talks about the fact that Black communities deserve better, Indigenous and LGBTQ2S+ communities deserve better, all communities deserve better.

As he talks about the ways to create this “better,” the silence behind Carson’s voice fades. Grunts and mm-hmm s of acknowledgment fill the space. And I can see why. It sounds good. Really good. Like why-in-the-world-is-this-stuff-not-happening-already good. How is it not happening?

Some of it must be…or is. I know. I’m a part of it every day at work. But not in the way Carson is talking about. Not in a way free from the systemic injustices that make my job feel as if I’m Sisyphus, pushing a boulder up a growing hill every single day. His words are inspiring, important, but also…not enough. Which is why we’re here, I suppose. Why Antony marched.

We can’t change what most needs to be changed: the way they see us. That, more than anything, is on them. But we can stand against the injustice. Show the world who we are and what we want.

As the sounds of acknowledgment continue and heads nod, I look around the room again, less afraid of the eyes that may be trained on me—the sad eyes, the bright eyes, the angry eyes—feeling a part of these people, because of the way I’ve been targeted, too, because of how much I want the world to be better.

My phone buzzes against my backside, pulling me out of this myth of oneness. Like a coward, I’d waited to text Thomas until I was halfway to Preston. Now, according to the buzz in my pants, he’s seen the message, knows I blew off our dinner plans to come here. It’s not the first time I’ve chosen Jasmine and my growing group of friends over Thomas, without even an invite for him to join, and guilt courses through me. But guilt is better than sitting across from him would be, seeing in his eyes the plea to make a decision: the decision he wants me to make. I send a quick message, apologize again—promising we’ll talk once I get home—then silence the phone and bring my focus back to Carson.