Quit trying to place me in a neat little white box <br />Quit telling me who I am because I know who I'm not <br />I'm all shades of pale <br />My veins they bleed <br />But I'm not just a white girl. I'm native, Cherokee. <br /> <br />My skin is not red like the sun is hot <br />I don't speak the tongue my ancestors have too soon forgot <br />But to assume you know my ethnicity based on what color you see <br />Is to reduce my identity to a complete simplicity <br /> <br />So before you make assumptions <br />Listen to the words that I speak <br />Because not even I <br />Understand the complexity that is me <br /> <br />I feel like a person who isn't recognized. <br />I'm only known for how I'm seen. A wandering undefined. <br />The ethnicity I claim is what most will never see. <br />In a society ruled by appearance, I'll never be seen as me. <br /> <br />Do you know what it's like to feel like an interloper among your own race? <br />To look in a mirror and not see your own face? <br />I know who you're looking at right now. I know that's who you see. <br />But when I see her in a mirror, I don't see me. <br /> <br />I see someone else's daughter, cousin, friend. <br />Someone else's classmate with milky white skin. <br />But coming to terms with how my two identities could coexist. <br />Has never been clear and has never made sense <br /> <br />Because if you judge by appearence it's all easy <br />One identitiy is forced on me <br />So the other might as well not exist.<br /><br />Kristen Brown<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/native-identity/
