A Song Below Water

Tavia, Effie, and Wallace meet up with their friends from school, Altruism (Allie) and two Jennifers to attend the Black Lives Matter protest. The other girls’ mothers are enthusiastic, giving them all backpacks with disposable cameras and milk to use in case of tear gas. Then, one mother hands them all black T-shirts with “I AM SIREN” written in white letters, saying they made them to support Camilla Fox. Tavia shrinks, thinking about protests’ bad reputations and the irony of the T-shirt for her. The other girls are getting credit in class for participating in the protest, which Tavia didn’t realize: “I didn’t know this mat­ter of life and jus­tice could also help get me into col­lege—but only if I were a tour­ist” (159). 

Tavia second-guesses if she’s emotionally equipped to handle this protest, wondering why she truly came. The group marches to the protest site, where Kenyon Jones’s mother is speaking; Kenyon was a Black teen who was recently killed by police. Tavia finds courage and empathy as Kenyon’s mother speaks, wondering if “etiquette and an ever-present fear” keep her and other Black people from being shot (162). Soon, everyone links arms, and Tavia is lost in the surreal, therapeutic camaraderie of the crowd of “every person of color” in the Pacific Northwest: “I don’t just feel like I be­long here, I feel like I be­long here” (163).