Sketches of Fumi

White America wants to pretend that it didn’t create the conditions in which poor ghetto dwellers now live. We want to forget our history. We don’t want to know that white racism created the ghetto and white indifference sustains it. We don’t want to admit that cops in big cities like Chicago will tell white kids like me to “get the hell out of the west side because those animals are capable of anything and you need to protect your wife.” We want to feel good about ourselves more than we want justice, we want sedation rather than peace, the appearance of opportunity rather than the concrete reality of it, comforting fictions rather than hard truths. Will America ever be equal? We can pray, we can hope. But we’re not there yet.