Filters block my vision, 

makeup covers my identity,

fear chocks my voice.  

Being oppressed,

is a con I have come to master.

Why is it when I raise my fist up in solidarity, 

a hand pulls me down—a hand that has seemingly forgotten that the blood that runs through its veins once colored the streets of Delhi and Oak Creek. 

Why is it the pledge of assimilation comes so easy to my tongue, 

but when I speak of protest, I am told to keep quiet. 

I am not the absence of color, nor do I wish to be. 

My skin, my bones, my history consists thoroughly of color.

I am getting tired of this collar around my neck, 

But really there is no point in explaining, in writing, in debating something that should be so basic, so elementary that the fact I stood amongst a chorus of thousands asking for justice is shameful. 

By the words of Franz Fanon, “when we revolt it’s not for a particular culture. We revolt simply because, for many reasons, we can no longer breathe.”