"I don't want you to think I'm racist. I love black people! I just hate *******."
Now, you will not believe how many people have said this to my face.
That they smile, thinking themselves so eloquent and clever,
Illustrates a problem to me much larger than the hatred of a race.

My tongue stays. I wouldn't want my "angry ******" to show her teeth.
She would ask if the color or the speech or the level of poverty made the black,
Or the ****** or the ***** or the **** or monkey or beast.
She may be eloquent and clever herself, but those white ears would never hear that.

We are conditioned to be blind and deaf and loudly ignorant to reality.
The rich and powerful have made us starkly numb to our own folly and pride,
So that we may believe ourselves to be indignant most righteously,
While we unconsciously hate all that is different, opposed, other, outside.

But I will be the same human with all my eloquence and cleverness, pride and folly,
Whether I am seen as "black" or "******" or maybe simply just "Cydney"