We Are a People Too

Don’t get me wrong, I love the color of my skin

Even though people look at me as if I had been hugged by the sun and held in its rays for a few days

I am a walking remembrance of my great-great grandmother’s strength

She slayed in the sun and sung and I won’t shame her and feel the rays of the sun and run “Lets hide y’all so we don’t get a shade darker”

The thing is, you can’t play hide and seek with who you are because then you would find yourself wishing you were someone else.

I’m telling you, this dark skin hides so many bruises. I’ve beaten myself up way worse than any angry white man with a whip would and I apologize if I seem worthless because I’m darker than your copper skin

I have learned to embrace my blackness. The darker I am, the deeper you fall into my angelic African American wings and know

That I am not mixed with anything. Even if I did claim an Indian tribe from generations ago that I do belong to, you’d probably still wouldn’t believe me

So I’m only mixed with 25% strength 25% dignity and the rest of me is just black

Society members approach an articulate and intellectual individual and insults them by calling them “White Black” or “One of the good ones”

I wear my dark skin like Kings wear crowns. I am a diamond stronger than your tongue

Talk about my skin. My back turned and all you see are broad shoulders that carry the burden of wondering if a picture makes me look lighter or not by angling the camera in the right direction.

Fixing photos into the right focus, we focus the color of our skin and not the shadiness in our hearts

Our canvas was painted before we had the colors to do so and makeup will make up for the thoughts I had before because beneath the concealer we are still the dark skinned people we were the day before.

Before you tell us that we are confused whether or not we like our skin color you ask society why are they are so confused about what beauty really is

Young men and women of all color, you have no idea how you have made that dark skin King/Queen feel when you told him that he was a shade too brown for you.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The best thing about being dark skinned is when that day comes and someone walks up to one and say they are beautiful, all they get to see is a dimple

Because he/she was too dark for them to see him/her blush.

This poem is about: 
My community
My country
Our world

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