Under the Same Stars by Libba Bray(23)
“They put up posters and stuff,” Bobby answers. His eyes say he’s already done an afternoon repeat of his daily wake and bake.
“Posters of what?”
“Like, Make Germany Great Again,” Bobby says.
In the chat, someone writes, “History repeats.” On camera, some of Miles’s classmates give snaps. Jason, who likes to call himself a “free speech agent,” puts on his red MAGA hat and does a victory dance and the chat comments get contentious.
“All right, settle down!” Ms. Diaz demands. “I promise you, I can still hold up your diplomas.”
The threat lands. The class settles, but even from his bedroom, Miles can feel the edgy electricity.
A couple of the A+ students chime in with answers to Ms. D’s question. “They fed Germans disinformation about Jewish people, communists, and intellectuals, and they used mass media to spread their message.” “They reinforced the fascist idea of Aryans as this pure bloodline.” “They banned books, art, music, anything that could present a different viewpoint and derail their narrative.”
Miles half listens. He’s scrolling through memes on the phone he keeps hidden in his lap.
“Can you think of some examples of propaganda at work today?” Ms. D asks the class.
Chi raises her hand. She must have gotten her hair done last weekend, trading in box braids for a tight Afro.
“Yes, Chi.”
“White supremacy,” Chi answers confidently.
Miles’s phone buzzes with a text from Danny.
DanMan: Here we go.
DanMan: That girl is so intense she could pick a fight with a bagel.
Intense doesn’t seem fair. If anything, Chi is passionate. She also gets things done. In February, on the anniversary of Trayvon Martin’s murder, Chi organized a school walkout with a march down to city hall. Last month, she started a voter registration drive. Miles both admires and is intimidated by her. She is the last person he’d want to look stupid in front of.
“Go on, Chi,” Ms. D prompts.
“Just the way Black people have been portrayed in this country in everything from politics to the media. We’ve been stereotyped, vilified, dehumanized. Like, if a white girl goes missing, we all hear about it. It’s national news. But a Black girl goes missing in Chicago?” She raises her arms in an “oh well” gesture. “I’m just saying.”
There’s dead silence in the Zoom room. One of the other Black students in the class, Patrick, types “#Fact” in the chat.
“What about antisemitism?” a girl named Rachel says. “Charlottesville? Those guys with torches yelling ‘Jews will not replace us’?”
“400 years of slavery,” another Black girl, Tisha, types in the chat.
Danny unmutes. “Hi. Longtime Korean here. First-time commenter. At my parents’ deli, someone wrote Asian flu on the window.”
Chi puts her fingertips to the bridge of her nose. “It’s not a contest, okay? Antisemitism sucks, too.”
“And all these examples need propaganda to spread,” Ms. Diaz says, trying to wrangle the conversation back.
“Like a virus,” Anwar says.
A white girl named Emma raises her hand. She likes to wear her opinions on her T-shirts. Today’s says Check Your Privilege. “I was at that protest for Trayvon.”
Miles’s phone vibrates.
DanMan: They’re on a first-name basis. Like Beyoncé.
Chi looks unimpressed. “Cool. And?”
Emma is uncustomarily silent.
“See, that’s the thing. It can’t just be one and done,” Chi says.
“Well said, Chi. If you really want to fight for change, you have to keep showing up. These systems of injustice don’t just go away overnight after one demonstration. It takes consistent, per sistent work. And if we get complacent, well, sometimes things slide backward.”
Miles’s phone buzzes.
DanMan: Oh snap! Emma got told!
“Okay, but no one here is guilty. Why make them always feel bad about the past?” Jens, a Danish transfer student, types into the chat. Patrick answers in the call: “Racism is not in the past. If you think that, you’re just telling yourself a fairy tale to avoid fighting for change. You’re complicit.”
Tisha types “#SystemicRacismExists #BlackLivesMatter.” Terry, whose uncle is a cop, answers with “#BlueLivesMatter,” and the class erupts into factions and fighting.
Ms. Diaz raises her voice to remind everyone that she will not tolerate disrespect of any kind. “You hear me?” It’s still, like the eye of a hurricane. “Your homework is to read the next two chapters from Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism. Be ready to talk on Thursday—especially some of you who are quiet,” she adds.
Chi turns off her camera first. Patrick and Tisha follow.
* * *
Miles heads downstairs with a collection of dirty bowls and cups that he drops in the sink along with other food-crusted dishes. He’s still thinking about history class. It’s made him uneasy, though he can’t pinpoint why. He feels like he should have more to say—he’s half-Asian; he’s got two moms—but he never knows quite what that is. The truth is, he lives a pretty easy life. Most of the time, he passes for what Danny calls “ethnically ambiguous.” Even his Filipino cousins tease that “maybe the donor was only half-Filipino, too.” Whenever Miles gets asked “what he is,” he is tempted to answer with a list of inanimate objects: I’m a collection of atoms. A dandelion. The answer to all your problems, baby. Still. He doesn’t get profiled in stores like he’s seen with some of his Black friends. He’s grown up in bougie Brooklyn with other families that look like his. What hardships has he had to overcome? Miles hates confrontation and conflict. He’s more likely to reach for a joke when things get tense. The dirtiest truth of all is how much Miles likes the easy path. How could he ever admit to that?