For Those Who Choose Not to See Color | A Poetic Reflection

I don't see color. I see people

You keep saying that. But what does that mean?

It means that color doesn't matter, and we should all love one another as human beings, rather than treating each other as objects or people worth seeing as better than or less than just because of what their skin looks like.

O beloved. What optimism you have. What a positive and hopeful way of seeing the world, or at least how it should be. Yes, I want that too, but I also know that there is another side to that hopefulness that looks at me in hindsight and blazes the hairs on the back of my neck as if grandmother is staring daggers of "you better not forget what they did" made out of glowing coals at my head and heart as I want so badly to look forward without looking back. But I have to look back. It is in looking back that I learn what didn't work and what needs changing. And sometimes, looking back is just a few minutes ago for me.

FOR THOSE WHO CHOOSE NOT TO SEE COLOR

Guess what? It matters.

I didn't say it should matter. I said, "It matters."

To be born without seeing color is the gift of the toddler who has discovered warm hugs from loving strangers.

Everyone can be a friend. Can't they?
Everyone has the capacity to do this for me. Don't they?
Everyone should feel what I'm feeling, so let me go out there and give out hugs too!
You get a hug! And, you get a hug! Everybody gets hugs!

But guess what? Color matters.

Shade of culture and shapes of curves from head to toe.
Who is who's mother and who is who's father.
And what country they came from or look like they came from.

I didn't say it should matter. I said, "It matters."

Lesser things have divided people who have forgotten the child within.
Lesser things have pushed families to raise children to push that little one into the corner of the mind to be left and forgotten.
Lesser things have left kids to raise themselves and believe that the hardest hearts are the most natural and normal hearts in this world.

Whether the prisoner or the perpetrator,
thebroken or the breaker,
the left behind or the climber on top
Color has been, is, and for the foreseeable future will matter because

to someone, it matters.
consciously
subconsioucly
intentionally
unintentionally

Whether redeemed as a source for love and perseverance, or weaponized as a source for hatred.

Guess what? It matters.

To be blind to these and more realities created by the human condition is like saying color is not real.

Oh, beloved, but it sure is.

Hate is real.
Love is real.
Neglect is real.
Ignorance is real.
Self-justification is real.
Self-love is real.

And, the ways we choose to use color often walk a tightrope of slippery assumptions.
Assumptions that land some in hot water and the rest of us scalded by the splash.
Assumptions that breath life into the least of us and make the greatest uncomfortable.

If you can see all of the challenges that come with a history
steeped in the messiness of race
without seeing color
and face them head-on in love,
then press on beloved and more power to you.

Thank you for digging deep and allowing your inner child to run your relational heart and mind, and helping the rest of us to tap into our inner children, too.

As for the rest of us, we have work to do to deal with broken, hardened, wounded hearts that can't shake the reality of how matters of color keep seeming to matter more and more in this world.

Until that day of victory is here or we reach the heavily home,
with the cloud of witnesses who tried to live a little of heave on earth themselves,
I will keep on saying it so that we see and do something about it

Seeing color matters.

I didn't say it should matter. I said, "It matters."

#BlackLivesMatter: This phrase is here because racial history has far too long perpetuated the falsehood that Black lives were expendable like objects of fascination and cattle to be graded, traded, sold, and butchered. Any lives who were devalued, abused, or otherwise pushed into less than human standing is likely to find comfort, community, and a spirit of uplift for celebrating themselves and their cultural community by similar hashtags. I encourage you to pay attention when counter-protests and similar phrases come to light that are more focused on lifting up those whose organizations and communities have systemic historical connections to causing harm to the least, the oppressed, and particularly those racially profiled. Of course, this is not all white people and police, but that's not the point. The keyword here is systemic. Some incidents are reflections of systemic issues and some incidents are just that, one-off moments of hurt, harm, and danger, often hard to predict and prevent. However, we can do something about the systemic issues around color, and I hope we find the paths that lead each of us to embrace our roles in fighting the good fight as well as loving beyond reason and measure along the journey.

About #BlackLivesMatter https://news.unm.edu/news/meaning-behind-the-movement-black-lives-matter
Why it's not opposed, but not about #BlueLivesMatter: Article from Landmark School
A show of how #WhiteLivesMatter has pushed a countermovement due to White Supremacist perspectives: Article from The Tennessean