Oreo

Sun, 06/08/2014 - 18:56 -- PAGYEI

"Wassup G, why you frontin'? Ain't we gon hit up your homeboy Jermaine today?"

Laughter bubbles up from amongst my classmates as I try to emulate their ebonics

"Paulina gurl stop you ain't black, you white as hell." More Laughter.

I laugh too, but I secretly hurt on the inside.

I'm not  black?

Why?

My skintone would beg to differ.

Is it because I'm well-read? Because I use words like "byzantine" and "ultracrepidarian" comfortably?

Why does that make me "white"? Why do you think that makes me "white"?

Who said that black people can't be well-read? That we can't be smart?

When did we blacks have a meeting to degrade ourselves, and buy into this idea of being "less"?

It saddens me deeply that whenever a black person doesn't fall into this stereotype of illiteracy, and ignorance they  are immediately labeled "white".

It hurts me even more that I believed this for years, trying to change myself to fit into this box of what I believed a "real" black person was.

How many other black people young and old still believe they will never amount to anything because of their skin tone?

Its 2014,

I can talk to my cousins on the other side of the world, there are literaly flying cars and 3D printers

But my people still don't get that the only thing holding them back are themselves.

 

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