For one of my classes we were tasked with the project of creating a poem about race. Obviously, race is a tricky subject in our society. I feel like most people see it as two extremes: either you're accepting of all people or you're racist. And in many cases, this is true. However, I feel like we, as a society, kind of dance around the subject of race. We try to act like we're all the same without actually facing the subject of race. Hence the phrase: "I don't see color." Well that's what this poem is about. Being blind to what makes us different. So here it goes:
I don’t see color.
This simple phrase that I had uttered, somewhat jokingly, yet with good intentions.
Or were they.
Turns out they weren’t.
Red, yellow, green. Race in our society is a traffic light and we are perpetually stuck on yellow. Our society doesn’t know whether to go or stop
so we turn off the light.
Now we are driving blind in a sea of racial ambiguity. You see, the thing about traffic lights is even though they all stand for something different, they still have the same eminence. Refusing to see color is leading yourself into a state of ambiguity, apathy, and assimilation.
Assimilation leads to
degradation leads to
abnegation which leads to infiltration.
I don’t want there to be an acclimation to this abomination.
Just like that, we’ve gone from trying to promote equality to resulting in inequality. See, when we refuse to see color, we refuse to acknowledge what makes us unique. We are not indistinguishable. Black culture is different than white culture. White culture es diferente que la cultura latina.
We are different.
Not lesser. But different.
And that is why
I see color.
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