#antiracism - Hello Poetry

people look at their hands like skin is a summary, like color can explain what they refuse to learn. they read bodies the way they read headlines, quick, lazy, already decided. they look at me and see what you have made, not what my ancestors cried for, bled for, died for. they don’t see the sacrifice buried in my bones, only the lies and wrongs history dressed up as “progress.” all that pain for a future that promised change and delivered repetition. maybe that story is a cover for how you feel. maybe it’s easier to blame the present than face the truth. but it’s not real. it was never real. they see a tan and invent a threat. see brown and rewrite the rules. see Black and clutch their fear like a family heirloom. see pale and call it neutral, call it normal, call it default. people shout labels like shields in a war of comfort: I’m Hispanic, I’m Black, I’m white, I’m Asian— but beneath the noise, nobody asks about the soul trying to breathe under the weight. what about I? what about me? what about the heartbeat that survived centuries of being misunderstood on purpose? difference isn’t dangerous. ignorance is. they push people away, call them insane, call them dramatic, call them too much— when really, they’re just afraid of learning something that would require change. no badge means pride when it’s used like a blade. no heritage stays holy when it’s weaponized against another body. it was never how we walked. never how we talked. it was skin. it was history. it was truth they didn’t want reflected back. people race to be right but never slow down to see the human race is made of the same fragile miracles: hearts that break, lungs that fight for air, brains that ache with memory, tongues that still try to speak. we laugh. we grieve. we endure. we rebuild with shaking hands because that’s what being human costs. so why push us away when you could stay? why choose comfort over conscience? look at your hands. look at your skin. say it honestly: this is not the whole story. the body is only the cover. the art lives underneath. don’t judge race. judge heart. judge what survives. judge what loves anyway. we are not labels. we are not mistakes. we are not your history’s excuse. we are human art, and refusing to see it doesn’t make us invisible. it just exposes who you decided not to become.

0

Jan 29

Jan 29, 2026 at 8:44 PM UTC

R3NNZZ

Human art

people look at their hands like skin is a summary, like color can explain what they refuse to learn. they read bodies the way they read headlines, quick, lazy, already decided. they look at me and see what you have made, not what my ancestors cried for, bled for, died for. they don’t see the sacrifice buried in my bones, only the lies and wrongs history dressed up as “progress.” all that pain for a future that promised change and delivered repetition. maybe that story is a cover for how you feel. maybe it’s easier to blame the present than face the truth. but it’s not real. it was never real. they see a tan and invent a threat. see brown and rewrite the rules. see Black and clutch their fear like a family heirloom. see pale and call it neutral, call it normal, call it default. people shout labels like shields in a war of comfort: I’m Hispanic, I’m Black, I’m white, I’m Asian— but beneath the noise, nobody asks about the soul trying to breathe under the weight. what about I? what about me? what about the heartbeat that survived centuries of being misunderstood on purpose? difference isn’t dangerous. ignorance is. they push people away, call them insane, call them dramatic, call them too much— when really, they’re just afraid of learning something that would require change. no badge means pride when it’s used like a blade. no heritage stays holy when it’s weaponized against another body. it was never how we walked. never how we talked. it was skin. it was history. it was truth they didn’t want reflected back. people race to be right but never slow down to see the human race is made of the same fragile miracles: hearts that break, lungs that fight for air, brains that ache with memory, tongues that still try to speak. we laugh. we grieve. we endure. we rebuild with shaking hands because that’s what being human costs. so why push us away when you could stay? why choose comfort over conscience? look at your hands. look at your skin. say it honestly: this is not the whole story. the body is only the cover. the art lives underneath. don’t judge race. judge heart. judge what survives. judge what loves anyway. we are not labels. we are not mistakes. we are not your history’s excuse. we are human art, and refusing to see it doesn’t make us invisible. it just exposes who you decided not to become.