I remember distinctly the day I was called a racist.
Clouds burst and ugly demons escaped. People will sleep with any excuse as long as it gives them a reason to plea, a mask of innocence to wear.
But you didn't see the hands reaching, did you? The eyes, darting back and forth like a juvenile delinquent trying to safely cross an interstate with money bags under his armpits? The bulging purses, open and vulnerable to crime? The perfumes, screeching from their places on the cabinets, whimpering like little children being kidnapped?
Sometimes I wish the world would be colorblind for one moment, so we could appreciate each other's humanity without referencing my color vs. your color. It doesn't matter if the skin we are intimate with is amethyst or sapphire or dark as coal. It does not make us more or less dignified than others.
"Ma'am, we do not discriminate here." Lather, rinse, repeat (the same message).
We are not savages. I write of colors when I long to feel beauty again, but colors do not define us, they simply exist within creation to be appreciated.
If there is ever a next time when you dare accuse me, I won't even bother with words. Words wasted on pithy denial. I face my conscience daily and it's time you face yours.
-
Written 9/24/14 @ 1:16 PM
This was another assignment for my poetry class, to write a prose poem inspired by a poem from Cedric Tillman, a poet from Charlotte, NC. I was inspired by his poem, "There Is Room", where his character works at a mall and sees how people do not appreciate the place and often trash it.
I was also inspired to write this from a situation at work where I decided to take initiative because I was suspcious, did not call anyone out on it or accuse, but simply asked for a co-worker to help me cover the front since we had a crowd and I was not going to take chances since there are frequent shoplifters at our store.
