{"id":687,"date":"2020-07-06T03:42:56","date_gmt":"2020-07-06T08:42:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/loveyoustrong.us\/?p=687"},"modified":"2020-07-06T11:58:05","modified_gmt":"2020-07-06T16:58:05","slug":"color","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/loveyoustrong.us\/index.php\/2020\/07\/06\/color\/","title":{"rendered":"Color."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I watch the sunset every night. My neighbor asked me why once, as if it was equivalent to watching the same movie over and over. I tried to tell him how it changes every night, every second, every minute. He shrugged and said it looks the same to him. I knew it was because he couldn\u2019t be bothered to look and it made me sad for him. Tonight, it made me think of people who often say they \u2018don\u2019t see color\u2019 when it comes to other humans, but teach their kids that girls can only like pink and boys can only like blue, as if colors are masculine or feminine. If a toddler or kindergartener gets a color wrong, they are quickly corrected in a red pen voice. They set these weird societal and gender constructs from birth that I\u2019ve spent years trying to drill out of my children\u2019s heads, and out of my own because it\u2019s so ingrained in there. If we can teach kids (and each other) what to do with the colors we see and not demand where to place them in little boxes, maybe we would stop being so appalled by difference. Black people exist, they are punished just for being black. Murdered even, they ask us to stop killing them and we say, \u201cBut…\u201d then we instruct them how to properly feel oppressed, from a lens of privilege. Gay people exist, are punished for being gay. Killed even. If they aren\u2019t murdered, they are walked to the edge by the same Pastor who invited them to \u2018find God\u2019 because he cares about their soul, then made fun of them on the internet. I have personal experience with that second one. But my skin is not black, so I\u2019ll listen more than I talk about their experience. This is Reese, tonight in front of the sunset. I don\u2019t have to teach him how to protect himself the same way the mother of a person of color does. He stood in front of me, named all of the colors in the sky tonight as he\u2019s done since he was a tiny boy, because he couldn\u2019t believe how it changes so quickly then turns to black. Black is when you can see the stars. <\/p>\n\n\n\n