I am a thirteen-year-or-so-old Latino boy. I am freaking out in some room that feels like a place where the community gathers, but it’s not a church. I - the young boy - am angry beyond orange, beyond red, beyond white. People are futilely trying to physically restrain me. Some white men have served an unnamed injustice to my people. Mi familia. I want to kill. I want their blood to stain my hands. I want to pull their hearts from their chests. No one can control me.
An old woman walks into the room. All attention falls upon her. I feel her black eyes bore into my being, but still, I thrash and fight to get to the white men, outside the place where I am.
The old woman walks directly up to me. She takes my wrists in her hands, and my strength - which has defied every woman, child and man in the room - is useless against her.
Holding my wrists, she gently brings my arms down to my sides and begins to cry, oh she cries from the depths of every soul that has ever graced this planet.
Through her tears, she calmly, soothingly whispers, “Don’t you know, don’t you know, only our stories can fight against these men. Only our words. You must say, ‘Excuse me, sir, but I would like to tell you this story about my grandmother.’ And the man will listen, our words will enter his heart, and kill his power from the inside.”