The Color Within
What is your Color?
April 20, 2024 — it is two years after I wrote this and I feel it needs a preface. As a child of a racist system I am in a continual state of learning, so I must add an addendum to the words below.
In the prose below I miss something. I unintentionally dismiss black people as I navigate an attempt for common ground. I appropriate the term “color” and I now understand why that was just more programing and an act of racism.
I still think my words below have merit, maybe even a learning moment and so I leave the work published as a study of one humans struggle to remain in the continuum of growth.
I am a Chicano male, and for those unaware of that designation, the term started in the 1960s. It was defined as a person being born in America to Mexican parents. Many young Mexicans in the 70s adopted “Chicano” as a badge of pride. We knew we were Americans; our birth certificate said so, but the “people without color” reminded us constantly that we were less in their eyes.
There was a sense of militancy surrounding the Chicano label. As a young man, I liked that, especially after my first encounter with a racist “lawman.” I will spare you those details, but it was the first time I felt hate for the police. I remember my girlfriend telling me not to be so angry, to “eat the pain,” and to turn towards activism to get involved. She introduced me to the “Brown Berets,” so I became a peacefully strong warrior of equality. I still am.
“My pigment is brown, but not really, more like tan, but not really. I have hidden parts from the sun so they are milky white, but not really. What I can tell you is when I bleed, it is red-just like you!”
-BBP (original thought)
What does color mean to me?
For me, there are two types of people farting on this planet. There are People with Color and People WITHOUT Color. Not all Caucasians are people without color, and not all pigmented people have color.
Color, to me, is a character of progressive behavior. “People with color” are not always successful in their intentions, thoughts, and actions but are always attempting to be better humans. They are consciously trying to erase the behavioral programming this country, this world, and those who would rule us have so maniacally and ingeniously embedded in us.
It is no easy task.
Color is not necessarily the pigment in your skin; it is the god you choose to follow or not. It is your sexuality and desire. It is feeling safe in your own body and surroundings. Color is music, art, thought, and awareness. Color is hospitality, empathy, and, most of all, patience.
I do not mean to diminish any cultural struggle by any group of people on this planet, and I don’t mean to redefine a word; I am just making a personal observation. Color is not what defines a person; character and what a person believes in and fights for, well, that is what defines you.
Each person can be a monster and or the best of us. Judging by pigment is a simpleton’s journey. I want to live in a world filled with people of color. The alternative is unbearable.
How about you?
“Bob tell it to the people” “..All we have to do is listen, there is a voice inside of us, telling us what to do, all we have to do is listen to know the right way”
-Bob Marley P.P (Last interview)
#PeopleWithoutColor #PeopleWithColor #BeWithColor
Note- Last night, as I was finishing this draft and checking spelling, comma splices, fragments, and clarity, I decided to find some comedy on Netflix. I like laughing. I found a new comic, at least to me, Judah Friedlander, hilarious. Close to the end, he jokes about “people of color and people without color.” Dagnabit, I thought. I swear this was an original thought. LOL, oh well. I continue my search for originality. Join me as I do.
