Black Like Me

Lokman Vural Elibol/Anadulo via Getty Images

I am called black, though my skin is really brown,
rich and warm, like coffee with cream.

I had just begun to feel comfortable in my skin
in North America, as our leaders began
to include some positive and inspiring figures
who looked like me.

But now. Oh, now.
Masked goons attack us based on how we look,
slam us into the pavement, are unmoved
by our screams, our tears, our sobbing children. 

We are entering the dark night of the soul.
When we emerge from this time,
I dream we will turn to the light,
vote away all that is doing harm,
that all of us who possess human hearts
will join together, strong in our belief
that each living being matters,
is someone of value, who deserves
to live unassaulted in what was once
called the "land of the free."

for Mary's prompt at What's Going On: Black or White. I am speaking here in the voice of a person of colour, who has my complete empathy for the cruelty and injustice so many are enduring now, for no reason other than the colour of their skin. (The title is a reference to the book of that title, written by John Howard Griffin,  who coloured his skin so he could research what it felt like to live in darker skin. It was a revelation to him.)

For years, all the way back to my teen years, since I became aware of racism and social injustice, I have worn my white skin with discomfort, knowing that it implies privilege I deserve no more than any other human on earth. For eight and a half years, I worked with the beautiful local First Nations community, in a centre for Indigenous families (children included) who were recovering from addiction issues but, even more so, from the legacy of intergenerational pain and trauma of the residential school system in Canada. 

I am all too aware that my white skin is that of the oppressor of people of colour all over the world. When Obama came to power, I felt such hope, as so many of us did. We are living with the backlash of that event right now and it is ugly. The terrorizing and brutal treatment of people of colour in the USA, the disappearing of citizens, is something I never thought I would see to this degree in North America (though racism has always been part of the story and is rising in Canada too.) Yet here we are. Hopefully, not for long. I applaud the strong voices raised in opposition, and the millions of marching feet that rise in protest. May each pair of marching feet march into the voting booth at every opportunity.

The arc of justice is long and more of us believe in equal rights for every human than those who do not.  I believe we will emerge, maybe sooner than we think, from this outrageous time, and begin working to restore and retrieve what is being lost. We live in hope.