I'm Not Sorry
Why can't you say my name as it was intended
Before your harsh tongue butchered it with English,
Spitting it back at my face,
Disgracing my culture, belittling who I am,
Erasing my identity because I don't matter
So long as you can stomp on the inkling of hope I manage to hold onto
Does my skin scare you?
Does this complexion constitute as an unspoken crime?
Does my skin tone stand as a denotation for intellectual inferiority?
Does the make-up of my pigment demarcate my verbal capabilities?
You act like my coloration is a handicap,
Like I should be ashamed of this sun-kissed hue.
Is my wild mane too animalistic?
Or should I be rocking a perm or a weave?
Because I'd be looking like Chewbacca otherwise,
Because my hair should be monotone, structured, lifeless.
Is it wrong that I am what I represent, not who I should represent?
Or am I not to be what's withing?
Supporting a cause, destroying my voice,
Leaving me colorless on a blueprint backdrop.
Color me with the brilliance of chaos
Because lacking a color is a burden,
Because being achromatic means being a racist,
Because I can inflict pain, not bear it.
I can't have pride or else I'm oppressice
But I'm not my ancestry,
Don't define me based on history
When we're speaking in the present tense.
Oh, the horrors of the cruelty of man.
Oh, the beauty of the aftermath of a storm
I'm not sorry; I won't apologize for being a palette of majesty,
I won't pretend I am worth nothing more than a puddle of diversity.
I am oppression, I am liberty, I am tragedy, I am independence.
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