The color of my skin

[Jade]

I see the color of your skin,

so let's not pretend it isn't there:

the deep rich, darkness of it will

cause others to hate you for their own

tragic flaws and the way their daddys raised them;

you'll step out onto the street and

someone averts their eyes, the signs on

the drinking fountains have left their shadows.

And race isn't just a sprint on home.

 

But I know the history stacked

in your ethnicity. The traditions

and the names left by grandmothers,

and daughters wed in endless saris.

Mourn in white for the white race that lost its

life when it stopped valueing its identity and yours.

 

I see the color of your skin,

and I know that there are men that kill,

kill to purify a people, a creed.

And I know these men are mine and yours

and we both pray that they

come home before the holidays.

And we both know they won't.

because there's an endless struggle

in which my brother believes

that when he massacres one man

he lives to kill another day.

 

But I know that if tomorrow,

my brother does die on the fields

or in the streets every man weeps the same.

And I know that when our brothers

and our sons come home

everyone laughs in the same dialect.

 

I see the color of your skin.

And I see mine.

And I know that when something fades

when I kill myself a little--

but only on the inside,

you won't be able to see it

through the color of my skin.

[Peredhil]

This is really well done. Too often the color of skin becomes a mask to the person inside - hiding them from the perception of others, and hiding others from their perception. Masks always impinge on sight both ways.

 

I'm reminded of talking to a fellow soldier. He mentioned that in the U.S.of A., he was always Afro-American, or Black American. Then he said the only place he'd ever been where his skin color didn't matter was a foreign country, where when he stepped out the gate, white yellow or black, they were just the hated Americans, one and all.

He moralized how sad he'd felt to realize that it took hatred to truly blind people to the skin color, when everyone preached that it was love which was blind.

 

I really enjoyed reading this.