Racial Vision By: Uma Attreya
If only there was never a thing called blindness,
Maybe people would be able to see more than the outsides.
When I take off my glasses,
I see a blur of colors
Not the intricate details of someone’s face,
Every speck of color in their iris,
Don’t see perfections or imperfections,
Just a formless, imperfect world.
Can’t lie
I’ve used color to blindly identify people before,
Color of their skin, hair, clothing,
Whatever my eyes last latched onto before the world got blurry.
Then I find the person
Without my glasses,
I see them
For who they are,
Quirks and flaws
I couldn’t tell you about the twinkle in their eyes,
But I know it’s there,
And I can see it.
Closing my eyes and hearing their voice,
I can see them for who they are
I use my vision to identify when the world isn’t vivid,
But even without that visual clarity, my morals are clear
I can see people on the inside,
Without x ray vision
And with a power of -7.
Why is it then,
People with 20/20 vision can’t see?
We both see the same color,
But why can’t they see more,
Why can’t they see clear?
They can see the intricate details of someone’s face,
Every speck of color in their iris
They don’t see a personality,
Just a color
And a word associated with it: threat.
A threat,
A person or thing likely to cause damage or danger
A threat,
With a twinkle in their eye that gets stomped out
A threat,
Who couldn’t breath enough to focus on the color in the world
Before it got blurry and dark.
I can’t see,
But I can see the truth
They can see with clarity,
But they can’t understand someone
Why couldn’t they see the light go off,
Feel the rage and hatred and prejudice take over?
Trained to assess,
Why didn’t they?
A group is not indicative of the many,
But one is all it takes to taint a reputation
A reputation of the worthy now being questioned
Because they just couldn’t see
Because they were blind.
We need to see
We need to educate
We need to speak
And we need to listen.
We need to put our glasses on
If only there was never a thing called blindness,
People would see the insides
Racial vision wouldn’t be a thing
In our 2020 vision.
