See me. I am not invisible.
See me. Beneath the veil of hate and poverty’s shroud. The me that stands American black and proud.
See me unobscured by the color of my skin. See the unblemished me, kissed by golden rays of sun and baked in heaven’s deep pure melanin.
OPINION
See me. The me still not allowed. The me who stands apart from the crowd and still exists as the me not yet disavowed from the association by racial affiliation that makes us all the same: “Black boy,” “Black girl,” “The Blacks.” No Me. No name. Swimming upstream in American disdain.
See me. For I am not invisible. Not indiscernible from the false narrative of racial hate and stereotype that render us all alike: Nappy headed with big bug eyes — society’s fright, blacker than a thousand midnights.
See me.
In the pure essence of my humanity. Flesh and blood, and heart and soul, too often lumped into one volatile sea of profanity. Born in an unforgiving land dripping with insanity. With gross inhumanity, where tears flow like rushing mighty waters. Where death and violence rage like a menacing storm.
Where upon the hearts of those who refuse to see me callouses have now formed. And the seeds of malice have grown, like weeds that choke and squeeze and ignore the pleas of the least of these whose sufferings drift upon the breezes of history and time, reminding me that we are but shadows in the eyes of some beholders.
Convincing me that the wind in our world always blows colder than on the other side. That my soul looks older if you stare deeply into my innocent eyes.
See me. See the me that lies beneath the mask. Beneath this disguise of grins and smiles that shine and blind.
See me. Hear me. Absorb my cries…
Beyond the song of my spirit angels whose ancestral voices still arise, drifting hopelessly upon the Atlantic, in less than romantic tones — of their longing for home, in heavenly melancholy melodies that chronicle our sojourn through a strange land under Oppression’s hand. That sifts our tormented souls like granules of sand in the hourglass with no remorse.
This is still our American course. Our mortal predestination: Incarceration. Social devastation. Economic deprivation. Mass miseducation. Black suffocation.
Like a plague, it saturates, infects and gnaws at the souls of black folks. Filters into the lifeblood of generations, requiring divine improvisations to escape mass hallucinations. Necessitating prescriptions of inspiration born by gifted fascinations, by self-determination, hope and education that excavate dreams too long deferred.
See me. Stare into the translucent brown windows to my soul, beyond the mahogany lines of my smile. See that I am not vile.
See me. My face is the sun. My heart is the full moon, piercing galaxies, diametrically opposing fallacies that I am somehow “less than.” And they declare boldly that I am not the Creator’s rejection but the divine creation, shaped and baked in Mother Earth. Perfect at birth.
See me. The He nobody knows. The She that glows exceedingly beyond the dull sameness and prevailing mundaneness that lump us all together.
See me. See the life that lives in me. The light that shines through me as resilience in the face of death. As hope when nothing’s left. Rising. Sparkling. Twinkling like diamond-studded midnight skies. Effervescent even in the face of lies.
See me. Beyond poverty’s mucus in my eyes.
See me and see the truth: That I am really no different than you.
See that beyond hate’s pall. I am not invisible at all.
Open your blinded eyes. And see me.
Email: Author@johnwfountain.com
