| Beneath the Skin |
| "The instructor said, Go home and write a page tonight. And let that page come out of you - Then, it will be true. I wonder if it's that simple?"* I know myself, but only myself. Do others know me? I don't think so. If I write a page of me - my thoughts, my feelings, my body - my color - what will they see? Race was a big issue then, not as much now, but they still think about it - I still think about it. Sometimes I wonder if I really am what people see. That is me, isn't it? What people see? Or am I everything they don't see? Everything that's not my race. White used to be better, and black said color didn't matter. Now everyone says color doesn't matter, but does it really? I was an outcast, too, ridiculed and made fun of for none other than my race, my very birth as it is. What am I to do about that? What am I to think? And it makes me think that maybe they once wondered these same things. Did they? Or is it just me? Is it me at all? I am one who thinks and feels the pain of solitude and scorn, all because of the way I am, wishing they saw me for who I am. Still I wonder - is what they see who I am? They don't see my thoughts and feelings, only what I wish them to see, and what I cannot help. I can't help it. I can't help being born the way I am. It doesn't stop them though. It didn't stop the race riots. It didn't stop the killing. If I lived then, would I have done what they do to me now? Would I have done what everyone else did? Would I have been what everone else was? Or would I still be me? They laugh now, because I'm me - Because they don't understand that I know why. Maybe if I told them they would tell me why they do this to me and cast me away from them. I don't want to be a part of them, but I want the choice. I want the choice to be me. Not my color - me. All of me. I am what they see, and I am what they don't see. I am everything, and I am nothing. Compared to them, I am different. That's all - just different. I am not better, not any more. If I had lived then, perhaps I would be, or at least thought I was. But I live now, and now no one's better. We are not the same. We are equal. This is true. This is me. |
| *from "Theme for English B" by Langston Hughes |
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