Poetic Reflections — Blending Colors

[To see the poem, click here.]

My inspiration for writing this poem came from a recent event for students and parents at an elementary school in California. At Chabot Elementary School, the Equity & Inclusion Committee organized a “Playdate Social” to ring in the new school year.

The playdate event invited families of all racial groups except white people. The controversy around this matter unfortunately reached a point where a fake bomb threat was called into the school.

It is unacceptable and tragic that any school should come under the threat, real or not, of a bomb attack. However, in my view, this should not distract us from the fact that the school in question organized an event that excluded certain people by their race.

Indeed, this seems to be part of a trend in recent years of separating or excluding people by identity in education in order to create “safe spaces” for historically marginalized groups. Although such endeavors may be well-intended — depending on one’s definition of good intent — I view them as dangerous to our social discourse. I see them as encouraging prejudice and discrimination on the basis of group identity.

The “colors” I speak of in the poem are primarily meant to symbolize the different racial groups, but they can also resemble other categorizations by which we as humans have excluded others — religion, nationality, sexual orientation etc. As recent years have made clear, we are not quite out of the woods when it comes to identity-based conflict.

We will probably never eradicate such conflict from our world, but reducing it is always a worthy aspiration. One of the best ways to do so is to promote unity, not separation, within our society.