Colors

LOOK BEYOND

Can’t we all just get along? Why can’t we all just get along?

Questions I ask myself at least two times a day with zero answers no where near in sight. My mother raised me to be a proud black girl which manifested into the proud Black woman I have become today. She would tell me over and over again to love the skin that I’m in. Until it stuck like crazy glue or more like gorilla glue. She also raised me to see beyond color when it came to others. She wanted me to love myself yes and to love others also. Regardless if they looked like me or if they didn’t look like me. To look and to love beyond color. I can see how to love beyond the colors. I can see colors, yes I can because I am not nor have I ever been colorblind. I love them. All of them. However, all of them won’t love me back simply because color is all they want to see, and are willing to see. In their eyes, my color is the wrong color. It’s an inferior color you know, the one left at the bottom of the barrel that gets overlooked. It’s just the continuation of a division which has been apparent long before I was a thought. It frustrates me completely because I’m cut from a different cloth.

My very first friend was a beautiful girl who happened to be of Asian decent. I met her at the laundromat and we became the best of friends. My mother would make me go with her to the laundromat every weekend which I hated lol. Anyways, we would play for hours and hours in our own little innocent world. Not even knowing or realizing it yet, the evil that was lurking on the outside of our world. Outside in the real world. Not in our made up one. I miss her still to this day and I hope she’s doing better than OK wherever she might be. She was so nice to me and so kind. So was her mom who I imagine was raising her right. I could only assume her mom was instilling the same righteous values, and morals in her that my mother was instilling in me. To love everyone. If only the world could’ve been like us. If only the world could play together like we did. It was so much fun and so genuine. I didn’t know how to give a damn about her skin color or her ethnic background. We were just two little girls having fun and enjoying each other’s company. You see…racism and hate are taught. What unfortunate lessons to teach. I just can’t understand why for the life of me! Why do you refuse to have anything to do with me simply because of the color of my skin? Not even knowing me. I don’t understand why you look at me like gum on bottom of your shiny shoe simply because of the color of my skin. I don’t understand why you assume that I’m lazy simply because of the color of my skin. I just don’t understand why you assume I’ll steal and you’ll follow me around in the store, as soon as I walk in simply because of the color of my skin. I just don’t understand why you assume I’m always mad because of the color of my skin. If I am mad, its because of the way you’re treating me simply because of the color of my skin. I don’t understand why you look at my natural hair with such disgust simply because of the color of my skin. I don’t understand why you generalize me with others alike simply because of the color of my skin. You won’t even give me a chance simply because of the color of my skin. I just don’t understand why you hate me simply because of the color of my skin. You don’t just hate me though. You hate me with so much conviction. You just don’t even know just how DOPE of a person I truly am! How GREAT of a person I truly am! How much of a HARDWORKER I am and just how INTELLIGENT I am! You’ll never know simply because of the color of my skin. I can surely go on and on. But what will it change? What will it prove? There’s no changing a ignorant mind that was groomed for a racist mentality. A mind that is so closed due to the negative overflow. It’s so unfair and disappointing to say the least. If only the world could see beyond color. I wish we could all get along. A prayerful wish that I’ll probably have to take to my grave.