It Shouldn't Matter...

Mitch always tried to tell himself that it didn’t matter if you were black, white, male, or female; that everyone had the same chances in this world. Of course, as a straight, white male, it was easy for him to hold this belief. His friend, Tasha, disagreed. She told him he had no idea how difficult it was to be a black woman in this world, how she had to try twice as hard for half the results. She looked him right in the eye and told him he had to experience it for himself.

There was a bit of lightning in her eyes, like nothing he had ever seen before. Then in an instant, the eyes he was looking at weren’t Tasha’s. Instead of being brown, they were now blue. Then he looked down at his own hands, and he was surprised to see dark skin. Somehow he had swapped bodies with Tasha.

She smiled back from Mitch’s own face, “Spend a week as me. See if you still feel the same way.”

Mitch told himself it shouldn’t matter. They both attended the same college; took many of the same classes. He told himself that it shouldn’t matter that he was now her. But he soon found that many of his former peers did seem to ignore him or dismiss his ideas more easily. But perhaps the worst part of being Tasha was leaving her apartment every morning. There was always a guy out there waiting for her, hitting on her, yelling rude things. Mitch had never felt so awkward and helpless in his life. He suddenly felt like Tasha really did have it much harder than he did, and it was out of her control completely. He didn’t want to admit it to her; he really didn’t. But maybe if he did, she’d swap back early. He really didn’t want to have to keep dealing with this guy every morning for the entire week.