I don’t expect you to understand me when I say that I see color FIRST
Color blindness does not exist in my world and works against me
The truth is that it works to comfort you
Comfort you into pretending that you have not violated my essence for a reason as absurd and unavoidable as a skin color
White man, how do you expect me to forget the assault done on my country, my people, my body…
Forget about it they say, get over slavery they say, it has happened so many centuries ago
I cannot trust you as I can still hear the desperate plea of my great-grandmother as you climbed on her and raped her with the hopes of adding her offspring to your list of properties
I cannot trust you as my Indigenous sister feels trapped in a land that is rightfully hers, and as fear consumes her knowing that if she goes missing or worse, if she gets killed, White man, you’ll jubilate and say to yourself “one less of them”
You despise us and yet you are scared of us, the term “COLORED” nothing more than a disguise and a play of words surely you meant to say “ODD”
Your claim to color blindness is dismissed: is your language color blind?!
“Visible minorities”, we sure are visible to you as you are visible to us, I guess what you really mean when you see me, is “visibly different”
You call us “colored”, but do you not have pigment?
Color blindness wants me to turn the other cheek and forget.
Yet, everything around me acts as a reminder: the ghettos, the reserves, the prisons, the words…
Every time one of my brothers steps out and encounters a police officer, trust me when I say that we are reminded
Every part of my identity working against me: Black, Black AFRICAN, Black African FEMALE
What is one to do? As an assault to one part of my identity is an assault to all of my essence
Being color blind works to comfort you, as you expect me to pretend my color no longer matters and expect me let my guard down…
This is why being color blind does not work for me; my Blackness does not work as a camouflage
"THE color blind CASE"
by Lalunedira