Sam Character Analysis

And then so many of my classmates nodded, like they could all relate. I actually looked across the room at the only other black girl in the class, and she was raising her hand, saying, “She took my answer,” and so I knew we’d probably never make eye contact about anything. And I realized how different I am from everyone else at St. Francis. Not only because I’m black and almost everyone else is white, but because their mothers are the kind of people who hire housekeepers, and my mother is the kind of person who works as one.

“It makes me feel like I’m learning a secret code or something. I don’t know. It’s powerful.”

“Powerful? Really?”

“Yes, all language is. That’s what you used to tell me.”

Dad puts his fork down. Leans back in his chair. “Me? I told you that?”

“Yes, when I was little. When it was story time and I didn’t want to stop playing to go read and you would tell me I ought to take every chance I get to open a book because it was once illegal to teach a black person how to read,” I remind him.

And the other girl talks so bad about Northeast Portland, not knowing she is talking about Sam’s neighborhood. Not knowing you shouldn’t ever talk about a place like it’s unlivable when you know someone, somewhere lives there. She goes on and on about how dangerous it used to be, how the houses are small, how it’s supposed to be the new cool place, but in her opinion, “it’s just a polished ghetto.” She says, “God, I’d be so depressed if I lived there.”

She will be on the news every day because she is a white girl and white girls who go missing always make the news. [...] For months people will tell girls and women to be careful and walk in pairs, but no one will tell boys and men not to rape women, not to kidnap us and toss us into rivers. And it will be a tragedy only because Sam died in a place she didn’t really belong to. No one will speak of the black and Latino girls who die here, who are from here.

I haven’t spent much time with Sam. Partly because I usually have something to do after school, but mostly because I don’t know how to be around her when I know she doesn’t think that salesclerk treated me wrong. I don’t even think she feels the tension between us. She has moved on and acts like everything is fine, but me? I’m stuck wondering if I can truly be friends with someone who doesn’t understand what I go through, how I feel.

Sometimes I just want to be comfortable in this skin, this body. Want to cock my head back and laugh [...] and not be told I’m too rowdy, too ghetto. Sometimes I want to go to school, wearing my hair big like cumulous clouds without getting any special attention [...] At school I turn on a switch, make sure nothing about me is too black. All day I am on. And that’s why sometimes after school, I don’t want to talk to Sam or go to her house, because her house is a reminder of how black I am.

“I just want to be normal. I just want a teacher to look at me and think I’m worth a trip to Costa Rica. Not just that I need help but that I can help someone else.”

And then so many of my classmates nodded, like they could all relate. I actually looked across the room at the only other black girl in the class, and she was raising her hand, saying, “She took my answer,” and so I knew we’d probably never make eye contact about anything. And I realized how different I am from everyone else at St. Francis. Not only because I’m black and almost everyone else is white, but because their mothers are the kind of people who hire housekeepers, and my mother is the kind of person who works as one.

“It makes me feel like I’m learning a secret code or something. I don’t know. It’s powerful.”

“Powerful? Really?”

“Yes, all language is. That’s what you used to tell me.”

Dad puts his fork down. Leans back in his chair. “Me? I told you that?”

“Yes, when I was little. When it was story time and I didn’t want to stop playing to go read and you would tell me I ought to take every chance I get to open a book because it was once illegal to teach a black person how to read,” I remind him.

And the other girl talks so bad about Northeast Portland, not knowing she is talking about Sam’s neighborhood. Not knowing you shouldn’t ever talk about a place like it’s unlivable when you know someone, somewhere lives there. She goes on and on about how dangerous it used to be, how the houses are small, how it’s supposed to be the new cool place, but in her opinion, “it’s just a polished ghetto.” She says, “God, I’d be so depressed if I lived there.”

She will be on the news every day because she is a white girl and white girls who go missing always make the news. [...] For months people will tell girls and women to be careful and walk in pairs, but no one will tell boys and men not to rape women, not to kidnap us and toss us into rivers. And it will be a tragedy only because Sam died in a place she didn’t really belong to. No one will speak of the black and Latino girls who die here, who are from here.

I haven’t spent much time with Sam. Partly because I usually have something to do after school, but mostly because I don’t know how to be around her when I know she doesn’t think that salesclerk treated me wrong. I don’t even think she feels the tension between us. She has moved on and acts like everything is fine, but me? I’m stuck wondering if I can truly be friends with someone who doesn’t understand what I go through, how I feel.

Sometimes I just want to be comfortable in this skin, this body. Want to cock my head back and laugh [...] and not be told I’m too rowdy, too ghetto. Sometimes I want to go to school, wearing my hair big like cumulous clouds without getting any special attention [...] At school I turn on a switch, make sure nothing about me is too black. All day I am on. And that’s why sometimes after school, I don’t want to talk to Sam or go to her house, because her house is a reminder of how black I am.

“I just want to be normal. I just want a teacher to look at me and think I’m worth a trip to Costa Rica. Not just that I need help but that I can help someone else.”