Remaining Neutral Short Story

Divided

Theme: Remaining neutral is siding with the oppressor not the oppressed

The icy winter wind tousled my tightly coiled curls as I sat on the tattered and unsheltered train platform; the only platform I was not deemed a threat. The women hold their heads low, the men hold theirs even lower, afraid to make any movement that the people situated on the platform across the train tracks may perceive as offensive. I stare in contempt, but I wouldn’t dare cross the train tracks to reach the sheltered platform for the privileged. My thick brown curls, as wild as the wind and my coloured skin are not permitted in the same vicinity as those people; white people.

As I contemplate why we are condemned to sit in the winter weather, a young exhausted

A furious woman abruptly jumps out of her seat and stands directly in front of the coloured mother, she begins taunting and slurring racial remarks. With my head held low I get a glimpse of the desperate mother’s expression, so full of exhaustion. As the white woman lifts her hand to the mother every person on this platform recoils into their seat, unusually do several people on the sheltered platform. She strikes the helpless mothers face and her child immediately begins to scream like an animal before slaughter, the fear is evidently coursing through them both now. She is pleading with this furious woman and every other person surrounding her, begging them to let her remain, for the sake of her child’s health and life. Her efforts are useless, the sheriffs arrive. Their polished uniforms and pale faces become clear, their long strides fasten when they notice the woman of colour in a white area. Before we know it, the sheriffs are brutally dragging the mother from her seat as she begs for mercy, consequently they have no regard for her or her child as they are not white and have broken the