Friend,
There’s always more to it than that two dimensional black and white photograph that you all envision as life. You think that when I am black I am weak, and insane, and perhaps just a self-serving person. You think that he is white and that he is somehow exempt from those infallible verdicts and judgments you let fall upon me. And perhaps someday you will all grow up and see that these things that you see now—that you want to see—they aren't real life. You’re still playing dress-up in your mother’s shoulder-padded button-down dress and black heels, desiring to be so much older and wiser, so much more than you are, and yet reveling in the fact that the shoes don’t fit. I see the world for all the shades of grey that it has, just as I see people for all of their shades of grey. Grey doesn't make something bad, it makes it interesting and complex and deeper than anyone is really fully aware of. But oh, how you like to pretend you live only in white. How you like to pretend so many things, in spite of the grown-up that you are supposed to be. It’s alright, because I have enough maturity to fill all of you twice over. I have lived, and I have felt, and seen, and heard, and wept. And for all that pain, and for all of the pain you caused me in your lack of sympathy, I survive yet and will not be beaten down, not by you, not by any soul, or feeling, or any idea. And if you never see that, if you never understand the world that you are blind to right now, I will pity you. Because for all of the hardships, there is always some hope for looking back. But you…all you see is now, because there is no back to look towards, and you don’t see a future.
There’s always more to it than that two dimensional black and white photograph that you all envision as life. You think that when I am black I am weak, and insane, and perhaps just a self-serving person. You think that he is white and that he is somehow exempt from those infallible verdicts and judgments you let fall upon me. And perhaps someday you will all grow up and see that these things that you see now—that you want to see—they aren't real life. You’re still playing dress-up in your mother’s shoulder-padded button-down dress and black heels, desiring to be so much older and wiser, so much more than you are, and yet reveling in the fact that the shoes don’t fit. I see the world for all the shades of grey that it has, just as I see people for all of their shades of grey. Grey doesn't make something bad, it makes it interesting and complex and deeper than anyone is really fully aware of. But oh, how you like to pretend you live only in white. How you like to pretend so many things, in spite of the grown-up that you are supposed to be. It’s alright, because I have enough maturity to fill all of you twice over. I have lived, and I have felt, and seen, and heard, and wept. And for all that pain, and for all of the pain you caused me in your lack of sympathy, I survive yet and will not be beaten down, not by you, not by any soul, or feeling, or any idea. And if you never see that, if you never understand the world that you are blind to right now, I will pity you. Because for all of the hardships, there is always some hope for looking back. But you…all you see is now, because there is no back to look towards, and you don’t see a future.
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