I am not a racist…
Wait! that’s not what I meant…
Is it because I write about it or make jokes?
Or am I?
Sometimes, the only times, you will only face it is when you trip over your words like the untied shoelaces to your light up sneakers,
Realizing the pavement was awaiting the sloppy kiss from your fall.
Because humor does not justify ignorance, at the pain of another.
Society tells us that our color is supposed to be categorized like palettes of paints at Lowe’s.
Yet, MY Miami classroom looks like a 256 pack of crayolas, WITH the sharpener!
YOU KNOW, the one that “Krafts” each individual’s culture like the “mac and cheese” crayon.
No, no, no, more like the NEW & INCLUSIVE “Maccarones con queso”!
And don’t forget the “maduras”, “pastelitos”, “legumes”, or “collard greens”.
Each crayon has its own page in MY Chicken Soup of the Soul.
A soup that soothes my soul,
A gumbo of latino dance moves with shades of “burnt sienna”, “chestnut”, and “apricot”, served at my family dinner table.
Along with the tabasco sauce to outline all colorful identities like the borders outlining Alabama and Georgia.
All after the Sunday morning church services.
I am not a racist…
Wait! that’s not what I meant…
Is it because I write about it or make jokes?
But don’t dare try to color outside of the lines of these modern day race relations!
White, black, mulattos, and the darkish shades of privilege.
They define our news.
Singing the blues.
When I have to ask,
“Have we really made progress?
Or has my generation started to regress?”
Riots, anger, and a-whole-lot of emotion.
But will we ever get the solution to our media’s attention?
GLORY