Amongst Color (Black Like Me Response)
I heard my voice,
as though it belonged to someone else
"...why are you crying?"
Hollow, in the empty room.
As they say so many times,
"It's just not right."
"What sickness has taken them?"
I turned away from the mirror,
my revulsion turned to grief
my own people could give the hate stare
could whither mans souls-
a half a dozen film negatives
each negative was blank-
masterpieces of human ingenuity, wasted.
Music from the jukebox, fragile and high pitched,
above the other noise.
I didn't want to leave the room and go back,
back into the mainstream of hell
The negatives...
I attempted to write
anything to escape the death dance
out there in the Mississippi night;
It was maddening.
I tried to write my wife
but she did not belong to this life
nothing to do with the African American
who I had changed into.
I started my letter
"My darling,..."
The observing self saw the *****
writing
to a white woman.
The visual barrier imposed itself.
The change of my skin color
would not allow me to go on
I began to understand Lionel Trillings remarks that culture
learned behavior patterns
so deeply engraved
is a prison.
a/n: the above was written in a response to the book Black Like Me which we are reading in
class, about a white man who tans his skin to look black to discover what life is really
like for the african american in the south.
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