Whiteout

As humans, color is a big part of the world as we know it. Different colors mean different things and represent different things and look like different things.

 

Sometimes, color isn't everything. Each MnM has a colored candy shell but whether you get red or blue they both taste the same. Two shirts: the same brand the same size, one is orange, and the other purple but they both fit the same. Two human beings: black and white, both have the same scientific name, same evolved brain but they are not treated equal. 

 

According to Google white privilege is defined as: "a term for societal privileges that benefit people identified as white."

 

White privilege is everywhere and we’ve become so accustomed to it we forgot how prominent it really is, like a dirty sock in the back of a closet. Stinking up the room but we get used to the stench.

 

White privilege is opening a magazine and seeing that 3 out of 4 models have a skin color similar to mine.

White privilege is going to a clothing store and asking for a pair of nude heels, nylons or a nude bra and receiving a product that matched my skin tone.

White privilege is finding Band-Aids that blend into my skin but contrast with others’.

White privilege is walking into Sephora and finding that most eye shadow shades are made to match with my complexion.

White privilege is walking into any salon knowing that the stylists know exactly how to cut and style my hair type.

White privilege is having more luxuries available to me because the color of my skin is an advantage in my society.

 

The issue of products only aimed toward me and my skin sounds like the high-pitched buzz of an old TV: deafeningly silent. Annoying, consistent, in the background yet, something we put up with anyways.

 

Just realizing that my pigmentation gives me more consumer opportunities in commercialized America proves the fact that after decades of fighting; we can’t lay down the gloves yet.

This poem is about: 
My country

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