Black and White (Questions from a mixed girl)

1. Why do you kick me down?
Demand I do not embrace my African heritage,
 and in the same breath put me on a pedestal for having slightly lighter skin?
As if the closer I am to white... the more beautiful I become;
as if immense amounts of melanin,
skin glimmering like gold beneath the sunlight is a bad thing.

2. Dear white people,
your ignorance is dangerous.
Why do you take your, “freedom of expression,” so far?
How can you still deny racism
as you sit confidently, arguing with a stranger on Facebook that
#alllivesmatter while the George Zimmerman trial plays on the television behind you?
 
It is only background noise.

3. How do you not hear the sobs
 of innocent black men,
black women,
children,
black PEOPLE
as they look down on this ‘land of the free’
praying that someone finally has some fucking
mercy;
while you ride around in your truck,
confederate flag blowing in the wind with so much power.

4. That’s a funny word... ‘power.’
I have never know what that feels like.
My father has never known what that feels like.
His brothers and sisters,
his father,
mother, her sisters will NEVER know
how it feels to have power.

but they have all learned to live
in full body armor
to keep their lips sewn intricately shut
with barbed wire.
they have felt the ghosts of shackles
tightly clasped around their ankles
pulling them barefoot across
hot, sharp rocks
inserting themselves so far into the soles of their feet
it turned their souls into sediment.

I am not saying that everything is black and white.
But please remember:
there is no grey area for hatred.

A.W.