Claire Eller

Humanities

9/29/2020
Final Essay

My name is Amara Carter, and I am one of the four carter children. I have two brothers
named Seven, who is going to graduate from high school soon, and Sekani, who is 9. Seven is
actually my half brother though, because we have different mothers. Then, I have a twin sister
named Starr, Starr and I are 16, and we have always been best friends, with the exception of
being best friends with Kahlil and Natasha when we were younger. Seven’s sister, Kenya is one
of the only friends we have where we live. We live in the ghetto neighborhood of Garden
Heights, and Starr and I often work at our dad’s (Maverik or Big Mav) store. However, we go to
school at Williamson Prep, since we are kinda the only black kids there, we are cool by default,
but here in Garden Heights, we have to earn it.
We shouldn’t have come to this party. I shouldn’t have let Kenya talk Starr into coming.
Something always goes wrong at these kinds of parties. As I follow Kenya and Starr through the
crowd of people, Kenya and Starr talk about Starr’s social status, and I wander to the corner of
the room. I haven’t always been included in that friendship anyways. The music thumps and
everyone dances, but I just stand there. I watch Kenya with her friends. Kenya is the kind of
popular girl that doesn’t wear the same thing twice. She’s automatically accepted, because of her
daddy, King. King is the biggest drug dealer in all of Garden Heights and the Leader of the King
Lords. I slowly move closer to Starr and Kenya, but then Kahlil gets my attention. Kahlil has
always had a crush on Starr, (even though Starr has a boyfriend at Williamson, named Chris,)
and asks where she is. After Kahlil leaves to find Starr, I walk over to Denasia, even though I
know Kenya’s mad at her for some stupid reason. I say hi to Denasia and DeVante, the guy she’s
dancing with, and talk with them for a while. Then I hear the pop-pop of gunshots, I spot Kenay
and we rush out the door and into the street. I tell her to stay as I look for Starr, but I think she
went with Kahlil. But when I get home, it is so much worse than that.
When I get home I find Starr in a crumpled heap on her bed. My momma already told me
what happened. Khalil was murdered by a police officer with the ​badge​ number 115. And Starr
saw it all. I guess Kahlil never got the talk like we did. When we were little our Daddy gave us
talk about what to do around police officers, and since Kahlil’s mom is a drug attic, he would
have no one to tell him what to do in that ​situation​. This isn’t fair, we already had to deal with
this once when Natasha was murdered when we were ten. I wrap my arms around Starr’s ​fragile​,
broken body, and give her as much comfort as I can, but there isn’t really much I can do. The
next day I go to school while Starr goes to the store with Daddy. At school, everyone is normal,
because they don’t know that Starr is the witness, but I do have to make up excuses for why she
isn’t here. The next day I wait in bed while Starr gets up, to find Daddy, Uncle Carlos, and
Momma arguing about Starr, and about moving from away from Garden Heights. Uncle Carlos
took care of us when Daddy was in jail for the first part of our lives, so Daddy has always been a
little salty around him. Eventually, Starr and I walk out into the living room, and she is faced
with the hard decision of talking to the cops about what happened. Starr looks worried, and
utterly confused about what to do next, but she reluctantly agrees to talk to the cops to​ justify
Kahlil’s death. I watch them talk, and hope, pray, that the cops will ​investigate​ enough to know
that Kahlil didn’t do anything wrong. I know that Starr doesn’t want to give her identity as the
witness, and I can’t blame her.
Over the weekend, we go to Kahlil’s house, where we talk to Kahlil’s grandma, and
Tammy, his sister. Starr looks very sad, and she looks like she is daydreaming about when
Kahlil was alive. And to be honest, I can’t help doing the same, I remember everytime we left his
house, he would say “see you later, alligator,” then I would say, “after a while crocodile”.
Monday is the day that Starr has to talk to the detectives, and we still have to go to school. When
I wake up, I find Starr hunched over her bed crying, and we eventually walk out to breakfast,
then we leave for school, and after we have to talk to the detectives. Momma told me that I had
to come along for moral support. When we get to school, I see Starr switch her personality to
Williamson Starr, and I remind myself to do the same. See people don’t except us as ourselves,
cause they think we’re the ghetto black kids, so we’re forced to act nonconfrontational, and give
them no reason to call us ghetto. We walk up to our friends Maya Hailey and Chris. There is
something going on between Hailey and Starr, but I can’t quite figure it out yet. Later as I walk
into class, I notice Starr with Chris having a little conversation about the condom thing, and I
decide to leave it alone, but if you ask me, I would say drop him. Everyone talks about their
spring break, but we don’t have anything to say, because the only thing that happened was……
the ​incident.
On our way back from school we get pulled over by a cop, and I can still remember the
terrified feeling I had, so I can’t even imagine what Starr is going through. Then we stop at the
Chinese restaurant that Momma loves and get food for all of us. Then we go to Mommas clinic
and drop off the food. There we see Brenda, Kahlil’s drug addict mom. She rocks back and forth
crying about how they killed her baby. Even though Kahlil wasn’t always with his mom, she was
still the person that carried him and birthed him. Ms. Brenda is Kahlil’s mom regardless. As we
walk through the police precinct to talk to the detectives, I can feel stares from all the workers,
and I am glad to escape them when we enter the room, after we say “hi” to Uncle Carlos who is a
cop. The interview goes ok I guess, but the detectives ask more questions about Kahlil’s drug
selling problem than the murder! The next time we go to school, there is still something wrong
with Hailey and Starr, and I finally figured out what happened. Hailey is racist. When we were
playing basketball, she made the fried chicken joke. After Hailey freaked out over Starr saying
that she was racist, Uncle Carlos picked us up, and took us to Momma’s work.
Funerals aren’t for dead people, they’re for the living. We listen to the songs, and the
hymns, and the preacher, but Kahlil is in a casket, and nothing can change that. When we all pay
our respects to Kahlil, King and his boys come in and place a gray bandana on him, the sign that
he was part of the King lords. Even though I had a feeling, it still stings. Towards the end of the
funeral, a lady named Ms. Ofrah stands up and announces that there will be a peaceful protest
after the ceremony. But we don’t stay for it. Instead, Ms. Ofrah seems to know that Starr is the
witness, and she askes her if Starr would like to do an interveiw, but Starr refuses, for now.
When we get home, the neighborhood is a warzone, with daddy at the store, and with Seven, the
man of the house, we hide in the den. I guess the protests weren’t so peaceful after all. Later,
Momma asks Daddy again if we can move away from Garden Heights, but he still says no. In the
morning Seven, Starr and I get our phones taken away since we went to play basketball without
telling them. Then we go to Uncle Carlos’ for the night, where Starr sees Chris, and I talk to
Nana. We spend the night at Uncle Carlos’ because of all the riots. The next day we talk to
daddy about THUG LIFE, and then when we go to the store, DeVante comes in asking for help
to get away from King. Daddy sets him up at Uncle Carlos’ house, because he’ll be safe there.
Williamson is unaturally quiet, and since we have our phones taken away, we don’t know
that there is a school-wide protest for Kahlil today. But we don’t use dead people to get out of
school, unlike Hailey. We go to each class, and Chris comes with us. After shcool we go to the
store, where Mr. Lewis snitches on King on live TV. We try to warn him, but Mr. Lewis doesn’t
listen. The cops pull up,and ​approach​ daddy. They realize that Starr is the witness, and they put
Daddy on the ground. My heart stops as daddy waits there as the cops search him. They
eventually drive away, but we were all scared for his life. Starr then thought more about speaking
up about Kahlil, so when we get home, she makes a blog about how Kahlil, wasn’t the thug
people think, but he was our friend. The next few days we go to Ms. Ofrah’s office and Starr
agrees to an interview. We are then interrupted by Mr. Lewis, he says that King beat him up for
snitching. Next we go to Uncle Carlos’. Starr and DeVante talk in the living room, and I can’t
help but overhear. DeVante says that Kahlil wasn’t a King Lord, and he just was trying to pay off
his mother’s debt with King. It was​ necessary​, because his mom couldnt pay the debt herself.
Starr and I go to Maya’s house, where Hailey is ​visible​ in the window from the street. When we
go up to say “hi”, Hailey is being a real jerk, so Maya, Starr and I make a minority alliance,
because Hailey was also racist to Maya. The next few days, Daddy promises to us that we can
move out of Garden Heights, and to be honest, it comes as a relief to me.
Today is the day of the interview, we dress all fancy, and and when Starr answers all the
questions, they blur her face, so she stays anonymous. They ask her what happened the night
Kahlil was murdered, and it is all very tense, but I would say it goes well. The interview goes
famous, and pretty much, so does Starr. Then we have Junior Senior Prom, Chris goes with Starr,
and for the first part of the night, he acts a little weird. Then Chris and Starr disappear in the
limo, and Starr tells me later, that they talked it out and everything was good. The rest of the
night is a blast, and it is one of the best nights of my life. On Sunday, our parents take us to our
new house that is a little bit further than Uncle Carlos’. Its nice, and the neigborhood is diverse,
and quiet. When we get home we watch basketball, but then someone shoots in our house. We all
duck and daddy grabs his glock. We suspect it is the King Lords. The next day Starr testifies to
the grand jury, and it seems that it went well.
On Monday Starr and Hailey get in a fight, it’s pretty brutal, and I try to hold her back,
but the fists fly. We have to picked up by Momma, and she is mad, but I think she secretly
would’ve done the same thing.
Were at Uncle Carlos’ for Seven’s Birthday party, and Iesha, Seven’s mom shows up.
Iesha was MIA at Seven’s graduation, so I don’t know why she she is here? After a heated
conversation, Seven shoos her away. I can understand why he wouldn’t want to deal with her
right now. The rest of the party is super fun. Good days don’t last forever though. We move into
our new house, and Starr goes over to Chris’s house. She stays the night, and we look for her
everwhere. Eventually she answers the phone, and Seven and I pick her and Chris up. We go
straight to King’s house, because King beat DeVante up. When we get there, we find DeVante
with Kenya and Lyric, and he’s beeding bad. We try to bring him to the door, but Iesha stops us.
She tells us to get out of the house, stop bleeding on her floor, and take Kenya, and Lyric with
us. When were on the way to drop Kenya and Lyric at their grandma’s house, Seven fumes. He’s
mad at Iesha, but he doesn’t get it. I tell him, that Iesha really helped us, cause with us gone,
King will take it out on her. I watch as the moment of realization hits. As we drive the radio
comes on. They announce the Grand Jury’s decision. They failed to indict. 115 won’t get
arrested. The car screeches to a stop. We all decide to protest. This isn’t right. We need ​justice
for Kahlil.
We protest, but it starts to get violent, and people are setting fire to buildings. Starr
doesn’t care, she gets on top of a police car, and gives her identity as the witness, she tells the
people that Kahlil lived! The cops throw tear gas, but Starr throws it back before it blows up.
Before we know it, tear gas is everywhere. It burns my eyes, and we have to leave the car. Some
Cedar Grove King Lords take us to Daddy’s store, where we pour milk on our eyes to stop the
burning, while making sure DeVante is ok, because he is still hurt. As I’m feeling the sweet
relief of the milk, we hear the window break and the store envelops in flames. King. Daddy
comes to our rescue, and opens the backdoor for us. But his store is scorched. Cops come, but the
rule of snitching no longer applies. Everyone rats King out, and he goes to jail for all the horrible
things he’s done. Everyone is rattled and shaken, but we survived.
Rebuild. Thats what Daddy told us. We are going to rebuild the store. I am content with
it, but I will not stop fighting for Kahlil, and the many more innocent people that were killed by
police brutality, and racism. Others fight for justice too. People are realizing, and shouting, and
marching and demanding. They’re not forgetting. I think that’s the most important part.
So many people have faced this injustice like we did for Kahlil, and it isn’t right, Starr and I will
always remember Kahlil as the friend he was, and we’ll never give up.