Black + White = Shades of Brown

Black + White = Shades of Brown

by Mia Athey

Black and white are my identity stripes

Like a zebra trotting through life against stereotypes.

Often questioned whether I’m black with white stripes or white with black,

It seems my identity is almost always attacked.

Living here in the land of the red, white and blue,

The identity of a person comes down to their exact hue.

“Other” has been a box I struggle to overlook,

Because other is not a color in my coloring book.

When black is brown and white is beige,

How should I color my race on a page?

As I look at my complexion all I see

Are the three primary sisters shining back at me.

Riveting red full of passion, fused with blue brimming all around,

Kissed by yellow’s dawning sun, their culmination shades of brown.

My skin is a mixture of nature’s keen eye,

Not a fixture in a picture for man to assume by.

For the brush of the creator uses every tone

To fashion the strokes of each pigment to us known.

So I throw out those paints of our old human habit,

Because at the end of the day, we are all made from the same palette.