Colorblind

I don’t see race or color

Past the three seconds

it takes me to realize

you are sapphire black and me,

I am pearly white

I don’t see racism

Past the three second

it takes me to realize

that the playing fields

are not leveled

Why should affirmative action be?

Why should your blackness

Allow you

To jump the line ahead of me

Why should I adhere to laws

that give you preferential treatment

over me

Haven’t your backs from the stripes of

yesteryears whips and chains

been long since healed

Haven’t your people

been dealt a better hand

Far greater

than the orchestrators of bondage past,

would deal

I am blind to police injustice,

excessive use of deadly force,

and so called, police brutality

I am deaf to

You bellyaching about oppression

Mass incarceration,

shooting black men in the street

And weary to the rhetoric

That the system we call justice

ain’t perfect and sure as hell

ain’t neat

Your thugs, your sons

Your wayward teens

Were they that unaware

to the end with which

they ‘d eventually meet

This thing called race and racism

Is a rocky road

That leads to no end

And its raw truths

A reality to which

We cannot in this lifetime

Dutifully attend