Got to See My Color, Man!

By Ernie McCray

“When I see a person
I don’t see color”
I heard a man say.
And I thought
what I usually think
as I listened to him that day:
I wondered, then,
how could he not see
the color of my skin,
my dark brown pigmentation
like a chocolate milk shake
or a cocoa colored
birthday cake
or a blend
of some kind of fine coffee
that a master barista might make…

How could he not see that
I’m more
Gingerbread Man
than snowman;
more a Nigerian
than a Swedish man,
more Black Panther
than Spiderman.
more likely from Ghana
than Japan,
more a jazzman
than a member
of a bagspipe band;
more tribesman
than tarzan,
more soul brotha
than Peter Pan,
more West African
than Afghanistan,
more “already got me one”
than “I need to take a trip
to the Yucatan
to get me a suntan.”
More, in some people’s minds,
bogeyman than human…

That, perhaps, more than any reason
is why I would say to the
no-color-seeing man,
based on my people’s history,
over centuries,
in this country:

Got to see my color, man!
Got to see my color, man!

Or, you won’t see me.

You won’t see me.