Racism- On the Subway by Sharon Olds

The boy and I face each other.

His feet are huge, in black sneakers

laced with white in a complex pattern like a

set of intentional scars.  We are stuck on

opposite sides of the car, a couple of

molecules stuck in a rod of light

rapidly moving through darkness.  He has the

casual cold look of a mugger,

alert under hooded lids.  He is wearing

red, like the inside of the body

exposed.  I am wearing dark fur, the

whole skin of an animal taken and

used.  I look at his raw face,

he looks at my fur coat, and I don’t

know if I am in his power-

he could take my coat so easily, my

briefcase, my life-

or if he is in my power, the way I am

living off his life, eating the steak

he does not eat, as if I am taking

the food from his mouth. And he is black

and I am white, and without meaning or

trying to I must profit from his darkness,

the way he absorbs the murderous beams of the

nation’s heart, as black cotton

absorbs the heat of the sun and holds it. There is

no way to know how easy this

white skin makes my life, this

life he could take so easily and

break across his knee like a stick the way his

own back is being broken, the

rod of his soul that at birth was dark and

fluid and rich as the heart of a seedling

ready to thrust up into any available light.

How often have we been in this situation? Either side of this situation? The uneasy feeling that our safety is at risk simply because the person standing across from us is dressed a certain way, has a color of skin different than our own. As time goes by and nothing happens this woman begins to examine her feelings and discovers that this is not about what he can take from her but, quite possibly about what she has already taken from him. She didn’t mug him or rob him on his way home from work but she knows that indirectly her action have contributed to the condition he lives in. She acknowledges the blessings in her life as she looks at a boy who was born to struggle. Born with the black skin that would always bring suspicious looks from those who had something they believed he wanted to take. Things that were so much easier to acquire simply because the color of their skin was white.