White people.
Why do we utter these words?
We know they are untrue.
Hollow. Counterfeit. Self-deception.
A trope we use to feel courteous. Virtuous.
But mostly comfortable.
Though we adhere to the lie.
And continue to deny.
We see color. Of course we do.
So why this refusal to understand?
The harm and insult of our played out charade?
When will we choose to learn?
How many voices? How many bodies?
Must be dumped in the wreckage?
Before the cost of our shrug-off clicks?
To disregard color is to overlook personhood.
To shovel grime and dirt.
On generations of ancestry.
To paint sanitized varnish.
Across millennia of history.
It’s an easy remark. It feels safe on the tongue.
Righteous. Innocuous. And just so nice.
But to those who hear it countless times over.
The phrase jabs like familiar abuse.
Another echo of the oppression they know.
Of the trauma. The depreciation.
Their stories have born marks of for centuries.
Humanity exists in deep, living color.
Individuality breathes in shades and pigments.
Beauty unfurls in a vibrant kaleidoscope.
Cultural identity remains in shared tones of skin.
We avert our eyes, white people.
But this does not make it less true.
Our chosen blindness veils us in comfort.
Yet binds others in dismissal.
Expulsion. Subjugation. Nullification.
We can see color.
But do we see racism?
Are we even looking?
And how will we respond to this?
Once we cannot unsee it anymore?
Health Be A Hippie 