Dear America:

I am tired of my skin color.

And yours.

Over the past two decades, I have listened to the frustrations of individuals who have been the target of unfavorable treatment due to the density of their melanin. And, there’s nothing more gratifying than knowing I’m one of many earthlings seeking relief from inaccurate assumptions tagged onto my complex cellular composition.

In swapping tales of trials and trauma with peers, I have empathized with brown-skinned individuals born and raised on American soil who have expressed their irritation in consistently being asked, “Where are you (really) from?” and being told their English is “well-spoken,” “eloquent” or “articulate” by beige-skinned friends, colleagues, acquaintances and strangers who don’t know what to make of such brown-skinned “aliens.”

I have noted the vexation of brown-skinned mothers who are assumed to be the nannies of their biological, beige-skinned children.

I have listened to the despair of a brown-skinned man who was stopped and searched en route to his graduate course at New York University.

I have interviewed couples sporting different colored skins who were shamed and shunned by their pastors and parents for engaging in a romantic relationship.

I have witnessed two brown-skinned women debate which of the two skin-lightening soaps in their hands would best “improve” their complexions.

I have listened to my mother recount with displeasure her reality when it came to seeking jobs back in the ‘70s; for example, she could not apply to become a flight attendant in her homeland—a nation founded by brown-skinned beings, but ran by beige-skinned beings (to this day)—due to the complexion that we both shared.

I have witnessed my three-year-old, brown-eyed, light brown-skinned and curly-haired Jewish cousin adamantly express disdain for her complexion (and “frizzy” hair), because it was not as “bright” as that of her beige-skinned and blue-eyed (biological) sister.

I have listened to a nine-year-old, medium brown-skinned girl recount with embarrassment the teasing she endures in grade school by her beige-skinned classmates.

And every year, I await with soul-piercing sadness a breaking news story that will reveal yet another unarmed individual who was murdered for their melanin.

This is the state of human affairs in post-emancipation America.

Pigment Politics

I first became aware of pigment politics in grade school, and the degrading incidents I have experienced in America and abroad due to my brown-stained skin have only increased since then.

I have learned to accept that skin tone bias is a normal part of civilized life in this “developed” nation.

However, I have yet to become accustomed to being denied service at a Miami-based bakery (courtesy of a counter attendant who made it verbally clear they hated brown-skinned humans), or to being told in a one-on-one job interview for an event planning position at a Miami-based “progressive” Jewish organization that my “skin color is going to be a problem for the [Jewish] board of directors.”

(Note: Underneath its sun-in-the-fun façade, Miami is known for being unwelcoming towards anyone arbitrarily perceived to be a “nigger” or a “negro.”)

In light of these normal discriminatory episodes, I must say that shopping has proven to be a far more humane experience, as I am constantly asked for assistance at retail stores by beige-skinned shoppers who automatically associate my dark skin with America’s service class. (For the digital record, I appreciate those who work in the service sector; I am however troubled when I meet beige-skinned strangers who assume that my pigmentation has preordained me for a maximum of five servitude-rooted professions in this world, one being a retail associate.) And, I am faithfully followed by brown-skinned security guards and beige-skinned sales associates, because as we all know, every human being dressed in my hue is a natural-born thief.

I Wish I Wasn’t Brown-Skinned

The skin I wear has made life frustrating, demoralizing and tiresome.

I am tired of all the two-faced, beige-skinned women I’ve met at work, school, church, my condominium and numerous public spaces who continue to make my life a living hell for no reason other than they regard me as a certified subhuman, courtesy of chattel slavery.

I am tired of being treated as though I’m a drug dealer or cannabis consumer by beige-skinned cops who truly have a tough time understanding that not everyone displaying brownish skin or locs engages in these activities.

(It is not a pleasant experience to be approached by a pale-skinned officer with a drug-sniffing canine at Washington D.C.’s Union Station when you’re waiting in line for your coffee at a busy kiosk, only to be casually greeted with, “You understand why I have to do this,” as your backpack and carry-on luggage are assumed to be crammed with narcotics, rather than the textbooks and notebooks you’ll be pouring over for an upcoming graduate-level exam upon returning to New York City.)

I am tired of dealing with beige-skinned strangers of men who feel no shame in physically or verbally harassing me in broad daylight by citing slurs directed at my skin color and gender.

I am tired of having to defend my human identity to so many entitled, beige-skinned individuals who feel an uneasiness in their inability to typecast me, and who then arrogantly demand that I owe them details of an ethnic origin, because they wish to stuff my personhood into their narrow, media-manufactured box of country-specific stereotypes.

I am tired (and irked) at having to deal with beige-skinned individuals who are disturbingly obsessed with hyper-analyzing and/or diminishing my humanity within minutes of meeting me through identity negotiations and forceful interrogations.

I am tired of meeting beige-skinned hipster pastors who believe prejudice and discrimination died 2,000-plus years ago with hipster Jesus, but yet, they wouldn’t be caught dead walking in a neighborhood that houses a predominantly dark brown-skinned human population after the sun goes down.

I am tired of beige-skinned peers noting a neighborhood is “ghetto”, “unsafe” or “sketchy” strictly because it is predominantly housed by brown-skinned humans.

I am tired of being addressed as “Girl” or “Hey, girl” by beige-skinned women who upon meeting me for the first time, intentionally neglect to address me by my name or nickname. Contrary to popular belief, many brown-skinned women are usually given a name once they enter the world.

I am tired of beige-skinned acquaintances who invite me to watch a triggering anti-slavery movie, or the latest film featuring an all-star, brown-skinned cast, because they feel that makes them woke.

I am tired of dealing with grade deflection and accusations of plagiarism (apparently, women who look like me cannot possibly know how to think or write essays in English), while being disrespected by beige-skinned classmates who genuinely believe I am morally inferior and intellectually incompetent due to what my melanin represents in their dangerous imagination.

I am tired of beige-skinned professors and classmates mistaking me for another woman who looks “just like me,” simply because we share the same complexion.

I am tired of beige-skinned colleagues and classmates proudly taking credit for work or assignments that I’ve completed.

I am tired of being told at job interviews that my complexion will not fit the company’s culture.

I am tired of meeting beige-skinned individuals who automatically converse with me in African American Vernacular English (AAVE), when I was only trained to speak Standard English in America, sadly.

(I appreciate the linguistic options the English language has to offer, but it makes no sense to expect foreign-raised persons living in the United States who happen to be shaded in a darker hue to speak African American Vernacular English, any more than it makes sense to mandate that all beige-skinned individuals from South Carolina speak Scanian upon arriving in Sweden.)

I am tired of the terror that paralyzes me in the daytime and nighttime, as I drive to visit a friend or to run an errand, and a police vehicle pulls up next to me or behind me.

I am tired of the flashbacks featuring interactions with beige-skinned police officers, including an incident whereby two cops ignored me with unfathomable pride, as I stood next to them and repeatedly begged for their assistance after being physically assaulted by a beige-skinned man while having brunch at an outdoor café in Miami Beach.

(I eventually accepted that acquiring help from beige-skinned officers or strangers in times of distress is rare when you’re perceived as a lowly darker-skinned woman.)

I am tired of wondering whether or not my soon-to-be 18-year-old, hoodie-clad dark brown-skinned cousin will be another hashtag making a cameo appearance on a Facebook feed when he enters college this fall, simply because he was at the right place at the right time, but in proximity to an emotionally unhealthy and paranoid beige-skinned police officer.

I am tired of receiving “colorful” insults on social media by grown men (of all hues) who struggle with an inferiority complex.

I am tired of being disrespected by beige-skinned flight attendants who hate themselves and/or their lives, and so feel the need to transfer their misery onto me.

I am tired of having to deal with brown-skinned grocery clerks at every grocery store in my area who constantly catcall me while I’m shopping.

I am tired of meeting beige-skinned and brown-skinned men who pretend to be genuinely interested in me, only to discover that I was a dating experiment, as they believe coupling with a beige-skinned woman is the morally correct path to holy matrimony.

(Note: I eventually learned that if a beige-skinned man courageously opts to date a medium or dark-brown-skinned woman, this will most likely result in this man being excommunicated by their disapproving G-d, and/or by a publicly progressive, yet privately prejudiced parent.)

I am tired of meeting beige-skinned strangers who forcefully expect me to know the names of every medium and dark-brown-skinned athlete, celebrity, entertainer, music artist, public figure, and scholar who has existed from 2000 B.C. to 2018 A.D.

I am tired of having the most bizarre assumptions made about me by beige-skinned strangers.

I am tired of meeting beige-skinned persons of various faith backgrounds who devalue me.

I am tired of having to defend the reality of my decade-to-decade interactions in America.

And, I am tired of living in an emotionally underdeveloped, beige-obsessed society—digital or otherwise—that prides itself on erasing my existence by humiliating my humanity.

Advancing Self-Segregation, And The KKK’s Agenda

While the aggressions I have experienced pale in comparison to the violent denial of human membership endured by my brown-skinned ancestors, the rise of skin-related hate crimes and assaults that my peers and I have become intimately acquainted with in light of former President Obama’s election (plus re-election) and President Trump’s election serve as cause for concern.

The politics of prejudice has terrorized the minds of many, and I remain fascinated by the vast majority of beige-skinned humans I have met who refuse to acknowledge the role that their explicit biases play in their day-to-day transactions when seeing or meeting individuals of a darker hue.

With the exception of those born with cognitive deficits or visual impairments, the beige-skinned humans I have met are accustomed to analyzing and classifying brown-skinned humans they interact with or see from a distance as different, a threat, worthless and/or less than. So, it is not surprising that stereotypes are immediately generated when coming face-to-face with someone whose complexion is slightly darker than theirs.

By consciously categorizing beige-skinned persons as blessed, superior, attractive, highly intelligent, good, cool, desirable, acceptable and safe, and brown-skinned persons as cursed, inferior, unattractive, dumb, bad, lame, repulsive, unacceptable and dangerous (then self-segregating accordingly), one is not so far off from applauding the prejudiced principles of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK).

Making Idols Out Of Inanimate Human Features

Creating idols out of complexions has never led to a fruitful outcome for humanity.

Egocentric attitudes paired with an assess-the-epidermis protocol permitted human-engineered chattel slavery to thrive for over 400 years, and consequently, this recreational exploitation justified applause for beige skins and disgust for brown skins, whilst activating an obsession with “fairness” culture and “Aryan” aesthetics to this day.

This is partially why we live in an extremely diverse, yet highly divisive and securely segregated society in the twenty-first century.

Establishing your imaginary enemy based on an imaginary race would appear to be a necessary, sin-centered step in maintaining a collective vision of a “purified” planet, and also, in remaining socially relevant within the pellet of politics and pop culture—two man-made domains that are infatuated with the fictitious, laughable and marketable (modern-day) invention of skin tone supremacy.

And so, on a superficial level, it makes sense that many beige-skinned parents—including those who identify as “Christians”—are deathly afraid of their beige-skinned offspring colluding with medium to dark-brown-skinned humans with “nappy” hair to potentially reproduce a peculiar demographic in decades to come, thereby generating more “purity problems” for those who simultaneously suffer from delusions of grandeur and spontaneous stereotyping.

(Even as the phenotypic landscape changes in America, I have good faith that select beige-skinned men will figure out one more system to further oppress humanity, such as enabling DNA tagging on government-issued IDs, or mandating melanin grading on government forms to engage in the futile and childish exercise of determining the “best” or “most attractive” skin color. On Earth, it seems that we must all have the freedom to continue clinging to our constructed vanities, because as we’ve seen from the Transatlantic Slave Trade, launching color-centric classifications and segregationist systems ultimately leads to the greater good and a closer relationship with a beige-skinned, straight-haired and blue-eyed G-d, apparently.)

I have met beige-skinned individuals who are quite comfortable with the idea that clearly defined beige-toned and brown-toned humans are morally different. And so, their ultimate American nightmare is the visual manifestation of phenotypic sameness that pulls from the brown and the beige color pool.

(Hence the “criminal” or “traitor” status that was strategically given to the few beige-skinned individuals who supported integrated schools, and to those who didn’t adhere to the complexion-matching rule when it came to dating and/or mating.)

Understandably, there exists a calculated bias that determines which pigmentation and phenotype is predominantly praised and/or featured in mainstream magazines, films (including apocalyptic, sci-fi, fantasy and “super savior” films), television sitcoms, advertisements, panelist lineups at conferences, stock photos, runway shows, digital campaigns and even popular Instagram profiles.

It’s not shocking that most beige-skinned casting directors and film investors do not consider my pigmentation and phenotype commercially palatable or profitable.

The world (and brilliant scam) that the mass media machine has long created is not a coincidence.

Getting On The Bias-Breaking Bandwagon

Thankfully, our country’s color crisis can be treated.

We will witness the birth of a new nation when the majority of beige-skinned persons—media moguls and faith leaders included—incrementally opt to audit their ego, examine their embedded biases, forgive their g-ds or G-d for creating darker-skinned humans, plus confront their indoctrinated insecurities around skin color and chattel slavery through uncomfortable dialogue.

Having engaged over 200 individuals in tense conversations on race-based constructs over the years, I obtained much-needed clarity in understanding why so many “good” beige-skinned persons (a) remind me that I am subhuman and therefore invisible or unwelcomed on G-d’s Earth; (b) remain oppressed by constructed identities (let’s face it, constructs are critical in maintaining delusional divisions); (c) fear me even if I’m walking at a decent distance behind them, or towards them; (d) pat their pant pockets or clutch their purses if our paths cross; (e) quadruple-lock their vehicles if they see my brown body walking nearby; (f) regard my non-straight hair texture, full lips, broad nose and dark brown eyes as remarkably unattractive; (g) insult my intelligence by offering unsolicited or elementary counsel that they would not offer to a beige-skinned woman or man; (h) hate me or treat me with indifference before I say a word; (i) presume I am a credible “threat” to their social order; and (j) place me in a ready-to-dissect or ready-to-stereotype box within minutes of engaging with me.

Having observed behavioral patterns stemming from skin tone bias throughout my short lifetime, it is chillingly clear that millions of beige-skinned humans are essentially programmable cogs who have been duped by an insufficient doctrine invented only a few hundred years ago to maintain a semblance of genetic superiority through a color-coded caste system.

This is marketing at its best, and worst.

Pride and prejudice mass produce inequality and inequity.

They can also serve as an opportunity to confront concealed biases—to critically question why as beige-skinned individuals, it is “normal” to engage so little with those whose skin complexions do not resemble theirs while assuming so much of the “other.”

This is not Kumbaya season; we are fast approaching a change in America’s phenotypic landscape.

Therefore, the arbitrary and antiquated concept of race will no longer be relevant. So, it might be worth your time (and mine) to think and talk about why so many pleasant and paranoid beige-skinned individuals are trained to regard brown-skinned persons as something other than human.

Perhaps in doing so, one will be reminded of the fundamental fabric that binds us together as one human family. And that is, our need to be heard, but most importantly, our inescapable need to be loved not for our skins, but for our Souls in a world saturated with trauma.

Now, if a candid chat on pigmentation bias, programming, perception, prejudice, preferential treatment and policymaking proves to be much too scary for this supposedly righteous “Christian” republic, then our next and only option is to sit back, relax, and watch our socially underdeveloped nation slowly burn like hell amidst a wave of destructive riots within a few years to come.

Your call.