If you see a black family, it's looting, but if it's a white

Host: The sky was the color of bruised steel — thick with storm clouds, heavy with rain that hadn’t yet fallen. The streets were nearly empty, except for the scattered debris that told stories no headline could ever capture — a broken shopping cart, a torn shoe, a cracked sign that once said “Hope Street.”

Jack and Jeeny stood under the awning of a boarded-up corner store, the scent of wet asphalt and smoke lingering in the air. Sirens moaned somewhere far off, their echoes tangled with the hum of a restless city that didn’t know whether to sleep or scream.

Jack lit a cigarette, its flame trembling against the wind.

Jack: “Kanye once said, ‘If you see a black family, it’s looting. But if it’s a white family, they are looking for food.’” He exhaled smoke slowly, the words hanging heavy. “It’s brutal. And it’s true.”

Jeeny: “Truth’s always brutal when it exposes the mirror.”

Host: A gust of wind pushed against the awning, rattling the loose metal sheets above them. The rain finally started — hesitant drops at first, then steady, insistent.

Jack: “You’d think by now people would’ve learned to see hunger before color.”

Jeeny: “You’d think,” she said quietly. “But people don’t see — they judge. The camera lens decides who’s desperate and who’s dangerous.”

Host: Her voice trembled slightly — not with fear, but with the weight of sadness carried too long.

Jack: “I remember that line. It was after Hurricane Katrina, right? The media ran two photos — one of a Black kid with a bag, one of a white couple with supplies. Same situation. Different caption. That’s when he said it.”

Jeeny: “And the world called him angry instead of honest.”

Host: Jack dropped the cigarette into a puddle, watching it hiss out — a small, angry light extinguished by the larger flood.

Jack: “It’s weird, isn’t it? How truth only sounds radical when it’s uncomfortable.”

Jeeny: “It’s not weird,” she said. “It’s history. We dress bias in the language of journalism, then call it objectivity.”

Host: The rain thickened, streaking across the glass window beside them. Behind it, the faint reflection of their faces appeared — distorted, merging with the empty street beyond.

Jack: “You think people can change that? Or are we too far gone?”

Jeeny: “Change isn’t a miracle, Jack. It’s a habit. One story at a time, one lens at a time. You start by asking why you believed the first caption without question.”

Host: He looked at her then, his eyes cold but alive — the kind of look a man gives when he’s realizing he’s been complicit in something quiet but cruel.

Jack: “You think people want to ask that?”

Jeeny: “No,” she said softly. “But they need to. Otherwise, we keep calling bias ‘perspective’ and prejudice ‘reporting.’”

Host: A crack of thunder rolled above, shaking the city awake. The neon lights across the street flickered — “OPEN 24 HOURS” — though the doors were long locked.

Jack: “You know what gets me? We talk about equality like it’s this noble cause. But equality’s not charity. It’s overdue debt.”

Jeeny: “And yet, some people still act like paying it back is theft.”

Host: The rain turned into a downpour now, drumming against the roof like an angry drumbeat. Jeeny pulled her hood up, her eyes glistening in the dim light.

Jack: “You ever wonder why the ones who suffer always have to explain themselves?”

Jeeny: “Because the privileged write the subtitles.”

Jack: “That’s dark.”

Jeeny: “No, that’s clarity.”

Host: The silence that followed wasn’t peace — it was weight. The kind that sits in the bones. The kind that doesn’t let you leave the same person you were a minute ago.

Jack: “You think Kanye meant it as politics?”

Jeeny: “No. He meant it as pain. A man watching two images and realizing which one the world forgives.”

Host: Her words lingered in the air like smoke. The rain softened again, now more whisper than roar, as if even the storm was listening.

Jack: “You know what’s crazy? He said that almost twenty years ago. And we’re still having the same conversation.”

Jeeny: “Because we never finished it. We just changed the headline.”

Host: A car passed, its wheels slicing through puddles, scattering reflections of streetlights like broken truth. Jack turned to her, his face caught half in shadow.

Jack: “Maybe that’s why I’ve always distrusted the news. It shows you the picture, but never the frame.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. The frame decides who’s guilty, who’s hungry, who’s human.”

Jack: “So what’s the answer then? Tear down the frame?”

Jeeny: “No,” she said. “Widen it.”

Host: She stepped closer to the edge of the awning, letting the rain hit her palms. Her fingers trembled, but her voice was steady.

Jeeny: “Widen it until it holds everyone. Until we can look at suffering and not ask whose side we’re on, but whose story we’re missing.”

Jack: “You sound like you still believe people can learn empathy.”

Jeeny: “I don’t think empathy is learned, Jack. I think it’s remembered.”

Host: The lightning flashed — for a heartbeat, everything froze. The rain suspended midair, their faces illuminated in fierce contrast — hers open, his shadowed, both human.

Jack: “You think the world will ever stop needing that quote?”

Jeeny: “Only when the captions finally match the truth.”

Host: The storm began to ease. The air smelled of renewal — wet earth, iron, distant thunder. Jeeny stepped out from under the awning, her boots splashing through shallow puddles. Jack hesitated, then followed.

Jack: “You ever get tired of believing things can change?”

Jeeny: “Every day,” she said. “But hope’s the only thing that’s ever made history flinch.”

Host: They walked together down the wet street — two small figures against a vast, broken world that still hummed with injustice and beauty in equal measure. Their reflections rippled in the puddles — dark, light, merging.

As they passed the shattered sign that once said “Hope Street,” the neon above flickered back to life — a brief, uncertain glow in the rain.

And for a moment, even the city seemed to breathe.

Not healed. Not forgiven. But awake.