Chocolate Man

Flushed against your skin
Wanting to dive in
To you I feel
The pain of your past
Before me like I
Did it to you
White and pale
Touch the powder and it crumbles
Between your fingers
I run scared
Of our difference


You’re black, I’m white, are we different? I was raised without you. White America was my only conception of the world. I saw black on television, black in movies, black in the airport on a trip to somewhere else, but never black in my reality. The ghetto was always a creation of television; the stories were always fables, meant to teach me something but never really experience by anyone else. The language was a joke, “What’s up, homie?” That’s all it was. Black.

I have wronged you. I have terrorized your identity with my ignorance. I never accepted you for real until you were staring me in the face. A walking contradiction? No. Just you. I was shadowed by society, sheltered by community and shattered by reality. You do exist, just like me. Your identity is something real and valid. I am angry that I have spent so many years denying you when I had so much to learn from you. However, I still have yet to understand one thing: you are no different from me.

(this is installment one of a paper i have to write for my senior seminar class here in philly. let me know what you think. questions and comments are appreciated.)