Why is love so painful? Some people say that love is the most beautiful feeling ever. You forget every single thing that is surrounding you. But in my case, love has been the most painful thing. 

This beautiful and emotional moment happened in 2014 when I lived in Bangladesh. A boy was welcomed into my life by my cousin´s suggestion. One afternoon, I was coming home from shopping by his house. I was stunned when I saw him. He was so handsome, looked so caring, like you can blindly trust him. I walked fast so he wouldn't recognize me. When I got home, I ran to my cousin and asked her all about him.  Then, a surprising thing happened when I went to Facebook: I saw a friend request from him. I started to blush so hard, and I quickly accepted the friend request.  

I started to look at all his pictures. He looked so adorable. I waited one full week just for him to text me first. On a Friday night, he texted me and the first hello was my first step toward him, but I didn't know what he thought of me. We talked as good friends. In the end of 2014, I only had one week left before I was coming back to the U.S., and I wanted to tell him my feelings. 

One day when we were texting, he asked me if I had a boyfriend. I said no. He asked if I had a crush. I said, “Yes. I love someone, but it's just from one side.” He asked me who he was. I didn't want to tell him that way. I wanted to tell him face-to-face. I didn’t have any chance to do it. I took some time to think and decided to say everything that was in my heart. I was in shock when he said, “I just treat you as a friend.” I asked him so many times why was it like that, but his answer was always the same. 

 I came back to the U.S. and decided to block him on FB so I can forget about him. I cried every single night and my pillow always got wet. That's not the worst part.  I had to pretend that I was happy when I was fully broken inside. 

I started school; it helped me focus on something else. I added him on Facebook again. I texted him so many times, but he never replied. He was always online but avoided me. He never wanted to talk to me even after I shared everything I had in my heart. He never wanted to understand me. My first love hasn’t given me anything except a big lesson. Keep your family  first, keep yourself second, keep your dreams third. I have been losing everything since I lost my first love. I know for sure that I will never forget him, no matter how old I am. 

The following is an excerpt from Seana’s developing novel about African-American women attending school throughout history. 

[Margaret Wright, age 12, 1919] 

I go to school on my daddy’s wagon with my 7 other siblings. The wagon smells like old rat. One of the wheels comes off the wagon, so it makes a squeaking noise. OWW!! That darn ole’ wood bench hurt through my flour sack dress! I got out the wagon walkin’ like a snail. I be scratchin’ as I walk through that dirty dirty ground to the school house. The classroom’s burning like my mama’s roasting pan. The books are ripped, walls are dirty, lunch looks like regurgitated dog food. Thinking about these disadvantages makes me feel depressed. I can’t walk out of a building or on a street without being stopped by a Ku Klux Klan member. I feel frozen inside, with a hole-riddled heart. 

 

[Angela McDonald, age 16 , 1975] 

I don’t like the feeling of waking up at four in the morning to go to a school where I don’t fit in! I am a METCO student, which means I live in Boston but attend high school in Marblehead for a better education. Every morning, I get on the school bus that smells like rotten compost. As I rest my head on the shiny hard window, I look outside. The bus pulls out of Roxbury. I see run-down apartments with faded bricks and cracked windows. Stores that are going out of business. People saying profanities and children throwing snowballs against the bus windows. Then the bus gets to the freeway, which is quieter. All I see are trees. A hour later, I start to see neutral-colored houses that look like  Barbie homes. I see yachts that are like the ones I see in the movies. The flowers seem tropical. My anxiety is in my head. Thinking about the racist knuckleheads that always throw rocks at me and say “Get out of my neighborhood darky!” That made me cringe. The bullying and discrimination makes me believe this is just the way life is. 

 

[Seana Fuller, age 18, 2017] 

I wake up with a smile on my face as I scroll through my Instagram feed and see my friends’ pictures. When I get to school, I open the blue double library doors and hear the chatter of students and teachers. I walk up the stairs with my head up high, smile on, and glistening on the inside like a diamond ring. I wear a strappy white blouse and tight skinny jeans. I stroll to my favorite table. The librarian greets me when I sit down. Her fair skin does not matter, her character does. A school environment means acceptance, no matter the gender, race, sexuality, religion, or culture background. Going to class is easy. When the bell rings, I make my way through the hallways with clusters of students.  

 

Author’s Statement 

Each generation is different, from socioeconomics to technology, culture, politics and social  justice. Every generation has pros and cons. It’s important to analyze the history of African-American women, including their strengths, battles, resilience, inner beauty and most importantly, perception about blackness.  

mornings filled with such strong tension 

that i buy black coffee. 

and wince as i gulp it down 

so i can try to blame my stomach’s queasiness 

on something other than the morning news, 

this isn’t easiest for me or for you. 

the coffee helps me forget the sleeplessness  

i awake to from each previous 

night. 

are we alright? 

a political campaign thriving off of hatred of whole races, 

ostracizing any different faces. 

how much black coffee do i need to drink before i can forget the sourness of society? 

trying to avoid the pain of so much ignorance by putting bitterness inside of me. 

mocking the disabled, 

insult the differently labeled, 

drown us in the progressive waters we have waded 

for years, swimming forward slowly trying to stop the hating. 

one step forward, six decades back. 

people being killed because they are black. 

something’s gotta be out of whack, cause 

people pushing laws that simply lack love 

and white supremacists trying to attack us. 

oh, please, excuse my harsh tone, 

they’re just decent people exercising freedom of speech 

just like the black reporter fired for saying you should be impeached. 

and i hate the taste of coffee, but i needed an extra large 

the day you passed an executive order 

banning millions of innocent people from our border 

just because of their assumed faith, 

i can’t stand this awful taste, 

neglect everything the dreamers ever chased, 

the feeling that our progress is being erased, 

as if our voices are nothing but a hopeless waste. 

when “we the people” only represents you the powerful 

you feel tall, you’re just standing atop your tower, though. 

and i drink my coffee trying to convince myself that 

our society knows it isn’t okay to grab her by the anything. 

but the words and actions you’ve taken do already ring 

in the heads of our nation’s next generations 

will you ever stop and look at the example you’re creating? 

because we shouldn’t be teaching to grab girls and build walls 

promoting rape culture and catcalls.  

excluding people because of who they love or their skin color 

whatever happened to loving our sisters and our brothers? 

and that’s why i drink coffee, 

but it’s time for me to stop. 

because by using coffee as a scapegoat for my stomach pain  

i’m playing right into this crazy, screwed up game. 

i’m done turning a blind eye, chugging coffee, suppressing a cry 

so please, listen to me now 

we can make a difference even if we don’t yet know how 

because if you tell me your stomach doesn’t feel sick from this tension 

then you better open up your eyes and start paying attention. 

this affects us. whether you believe it or not. 

we need to stand up and share our own thoughts 

your stomach ought to feel like it’s twisted in knots 

so we’ve got to act now, hear the ticking of the clock. 

it’s time this hatred and prejudice and sexism stop. 

and to anyone who believes we are overreacting 

i hope your coffee soon stops its temporary distracting. 

you may not like what i am saying, but you can’t stop me 

because today’s the day we spit out our black coffee.

I remember the night of the election vividly. I was sitting on a stool right next to my dad, who was sitting cross-legged on the sofa. He insisted on keeping me awake way beyond my 8 pm bedtime because this was supposedly a historical occasion I needed to witness.  

“You need to retell, it detail by detail, for your future grandchildren,” he said. 

As a 7-year-old, I could care less, but my dad kept insisting. So I kept a jug of water right next to me, splashing my face with water every time I struggled to keep my eyes open. Eventually, after what seemed like endless waiting, the president-elect himself walked out. Then, sitting under my dad’s feet, my eyes glued to the TV, and with my dad repeatedly emphasizing “This is important, Elebi. History is being made,” I saw a man I could relate to and identify with on world TV for the very first time.  

Before, the people I saw on TV were complete strangers that in no way resembled me, and because I grew up up in a small rural community, TV was the only portal through which I saw the outside world. I was ignorant to the history of the world and the history of black people. But, I can tell you that even to me back then, 8,000 miles away, it was evident that Obama’s election was a milestone and proof of America’s triumphing freedom and democracy. A regular man who persevered through hard times made it to the white castle. Obama was a symbol to entire world of the American promise of equal opportunity.  

It was with this mindset I moved to Boston in 2012 with my entire family, where I was welcomed with open arms. The America that was advertised to the world in terms of opportunity and freedom seemed true for a time. And Obama was a manifestation of these ideals for me as a president. However, as time went on and I immersed myself more and more into American culture, my perfect bubble of America shattered. This was especially due to the emergence of the Black Lives Matter Movement and the following demonstrations that occurred throughout the nation. The reaction to the call for fair and equal treatment by these movements with “All Lives Matter,” racial slurs and outright hatred made my once positive view of America seem like a ridiculous joke. There was a huge clash between these movements that lacked actual talking and listening to each other. Most lived in their own bubbles that only let them hear what they wanted to hear.  

As a Teens in Print journalist, I am lucky enough to be able to cross into other people's worlds, hoping to learn more about them and the world they come from by respectfully asking questions, trying to create a medium where real conversation can occur. So thank you everyone—by being here, listening to my story and having conversations, we're all doing our parts. 

 

 

America: It’s not me, it’s you.

You have spent your precious time nurturing me, and I thank you for that. By letting my parents come here, it gave them the livelihood to provide for their American daughter, and I’m forever indebted to you for that. However, it’s time we start rethinking our relationship.  

It’s not because I don’t love you, but lately things have gotten complicated between us. I am starting to realize you are not the country I thought you were. People said you stood for freedom and liberty and justice for all, so I thought you were always going to take care of me. And for a while, that seemed true. You worked day and night to give me as many opportunities as you could by sending me to the right schools and giving me wonderful teachers who cared about me.  

I wanted this to work. I tried to make you proud. I stayed late at school EVERY single day and didn’t do much else because I wanted to do everything in my power to make you happy. 

 Of course, everyone warned me about your baggage from past relationships, that you spent centuries discriminating against people who look like me. But what can I say? I wanted you to prove them wrong.  

After all, you helped me grow from a loud, happy child into a bright young woman with her whole life ahead of her. How could the same country that showed me bright fireworks covering the New York skyline on the 4th of July do anything to hurt me? Over the past eight years I came to believe our relationship would last forever.

But then, on November 8, 2016, I realized I couldn’t keep making excuses for you anymore.   

You changed on me, America. We stopped communicating the way we used to. When I tried to talk to you about racism and climate change, you just changed the subject to North Korea and Russia. Honestly, you’re acting like a petulant six-year-old that doesn’t have the ability to take care of itself.  

What hurts the most is that it seems like my voice doesn’t even matter to you anymore. I’m not denying you’ve made an imprint on my life. Our relationship has taught me an invaluable lesson about freedom. I am resisting not because of my inability to grasp reality, but because I have seen our reality and won’t accept it.  

We want different things and that’s driving us apart. I don’t regret our time together but I’m afraid this is all it’s come to. America, it wasn’t me this time, it was all you. I’ve been trying to make this work but I have lost hope.  Maybe down the road we can be friends and laugh about the good times we had together. But for now, you’re going to miss me when I’m gone.  

-Gabby 

P.S. I am blocking you on Twitter.  

I was honored to facilitate the hate crimes workshop alongside Carlos Rojas, special project director for Youth on Board. The main objectives of the workshop were to ensure participants left with a better understanding of what a hate crime was and how to report one.  

Participants were asked to share their definition of a hate crime with other students. Many of the answers proved that not everyone understood what was considered a hate crime. 

After we presented them with the legal definition of a hate crime, we conducted an ice breaker around stereotypes. Participants were asked to write down the first word that came to mind when they heard “African-Americans,” “Muslim” and “Latino,” which are the main groups that are often targets for hate crimes.   

We also discussed the intersectionality between stereotypes and hate crimes. One participant mentioned how they hadn’t taken into consideration how stereotypes not only make groups of people look bad, but they also make them vulnerable to harsh treatment from others.  

 
The following excerpts were written in response to the prompt "What is an element of your identity that you value, but other people in society may not see as valuable?"

That the fact that I’m black, others think that because she’s black she’s probably not that smart. -Johanna Thermidor 

 

My defensive attitude. I am usually seen as a really rude person when really...I use my attitude as a way of protection. -Josiehanna Colon 

 

One thing I wish people would understand is that I’m not smarter than anyone. I just worked hard for my academic status and when people say “How did you get that wrong?” or “you guys are gonna win because you are super smart” it makes me frustrated. The people just assume these things about me. -Luis Santana 

 

Being a black woman is difficult because society expects me to be quiet and uneducated. When I do speak up I am seen as ghetto and angry. -Christie Barronville 

 

An element of who I am as a black man is my skin color, as it ties me to my race, my family. Others may not like it because of how it differs from theirs, but I don’t care. -Anonymous