I am hue I am.

Her colour, my colour. Our skin colours.

Racism. They said.

The terrible dissection of humans based on the constructs of race.

What is race after all?

Color. People of color weren’t they.

They call them black, brown and yellow.

Like the shades of a bruise.

Unsightly and blemished.

They raise their voices, call out how ‘lives matter’ and fight for their rights.

But where do all their protests disappear when it’s about home. And it’s about colour again.

“You’re almost beautiful with those large doe-eyes.” they said.

A touch of fairness will make it better, they swore.

And then they go back on their words, change it.

Until it’s twisted like the gnarled roots of poison ivy.

“Oh.You’re too pale.” they mock.

Like my color and the skin I was born within, needs their validation to be beautiful.

As if I'm beautiful solely because of the degree of melanin content.

Every time they cast someone in their plays.

Someone beautiful and pale. 

They ‘dust’ them up to look duskier. 

And every time they cast someone,

someone beautiful and caramel 

and brush them up to look pale. 

Isn't that racism? 

Isn't that you letting White-skinned supremacy take over your Nation? 

Aren't you giving into colonialism that you have worked so hard to remove traces off? 

Aren't you reverting back to the times when oppression reined free?

 

You change names and identities of people and their places and claim,

 "This sounds more like us. This isn't colonialism swaying us anymore."

And yet, you turn to your own daughters and sisters and women. 

Your own blood, sweat, tears and love. 

And with the same tongue spin tales of beautiful white maidens and goddesses. 

Tell her how she will never marry someone nice, 

if she's not fairer than snow and ice.

Of how every fairytale has undyed princes and princesses. 

Unblemished skin. 

No traces of melatonin. 

Unnatural to us. And you call it pretty. 

The fairness creams and dusts. 

The media and the manikins. 

The children in the shadows, 

floating in a sea of bigotry. 

I see you. I know that you know. 

You know that skin color should not matter, should it? 

What about the morals they taught about beauty being skin deep? 

And yet we've reverted back to calling white 'pretty' and brown 'something that could be pretty with a little bit of powder'. 

We have no right to talk about how much we’ve advanced. 

So scientific. Such sound logic. 

And yet our stories hold tales of people becoming strong and independent and ‘fair’.

And yet we compliment people based on how 'light' their skin tone is. 

And yet so often are the villains and heroes of our stories,

portrayed with a difference in tints. 

Like it is logical that the darker he was, 

Was greater the reflection of evil within.

Tinges that marked the terror of an oppressor. 

And our saviour, they are. 

The fair, the white. The ‘lighter’ tincture. 

Maybe we're in denial.

Maybe it was all a coincidence. 

An accident in melatonin. 

We're us. We're free. We're our own country. 

We fought for independence. 

Oh. Did not we? 

Freedom that we achieved in the 1950's.

Is it freedom really? 

When we oppress ourselves over and over again.

Talking about color again and again. 

To everyone who has ever looked at themselves in mirrors and reflective surfaces and thought to themselves, 'I wish I wasn't hue I am'.

(Please excuse my terrible puns. Yes, I giggled to myself and proudly thought of how funny I was when I came up with them on a Friday night.)

copyrightⒸ 2020 Mnemoyne


Photo by Flora Westbrook from Pexels