Who Are The Teachers Of Hatred? Part IV

His words sent pain to her heart she couldn’t understand. She stared into his eyes and saw her pain, in his eyes.

Sighing heavily forcing her pain back where it came from, she stood up, “I am sorry, but your crime is unspeakable and without conscience. I can’t allow hatred to win twice.”

Inside her car, Maeko cried, as the pain of the hatred that her grandmother fought to keep out of her heart, threatened to consume her ability to think positively, allowing her to do her best. “Don’t allow your personal feelings to get in the way of what is right,” she recalls her grandmother’s words. Hurrying home, to the one heart she was sure of that had no hatred in it.

Maeko got home and saw Clive Barrett inside the dining room talking to her grandmother.

He bolted up as she entered, and proposed, “Your job is yours with a junior partnership.”

She stares at him, then nods, “Sorry, but Franklin, Deer, and Hamilton have offered me a position.”

“But they are a white law firm,” Clive Barrett said.

“Tori Franklin and I were in the same class in law school. She demands that her father hire me. I turned him down because I thought, that a black law firm wouldn’t violate my rights,” she explains.

“I am sorry, but you got to understand, we didn’t know if you were going to accept The Hashenbreg’s case.”

“No one bothered to ask me if I was going to,” she said easing towards her grandmother, who was sitting around a long oval table in the dining room. Pulling a seat out facing her, Maeko sat down putting her laptop case on the table, then said, after sitting down, “You should have trusted me and given me the benefit of the doubt.”

“I am sorry, but a brilliant mind like yours should be with your own people.”

“That’s why I chose your law firm. You see Mr. Barrett, I am aware of racism. I am aware that my skin color is a threat. My education as an educated black female is also a threat. I might face racism inside of a white business. I am aware of the possibilities. I never expected to face what you did to me, from my own people,” she explains.

“I am so sorry, but you know our people, they would see your acceptance of the Hashenberg appeal as what Judas did to Christ,” he defends.

“But I didn’t Sir,” Maeko stressed. “He was talking to the media after the verdict and when CNN asked who was going to do his appeal. He said he was going to ask me. That’s when I got a call from Tori Franklin. And before I could respond you pulled me inside your office and fired me.”

“I am sorry, but I am willing to offer you a junior partnership,” he proposed again.

“I am sorry Mr. Barrett, but you knew the law and broke it throwing me to the curb. I need to find out what is behind door number two.”

“Your thesis is everywhere, and all major law firms want you. Come back and I will give you senior partnership,” he promised.

Maeko stared at him, remembering Steven’s words, “Mr. Hashenberg said that hatred had no color and he was right. What you did by firing me isn’t coming from a place of love Mr. Barrett, just like the promises you are making now to lure me back in.”

Taking her phone from her pocket she dialed, “Could you tell Mr. Hashenbreg that Maeko Samoya will take his appeal!”

If your heart could speak, what would it say?

Hatred is a weapon humans use to destroy each other. Love is a tool that can erase hatred. Which do you use, a tool or a weapon? Annelise Lords

Thank you for reading this piece. I hope you enjoyed it.