I had a dream that one day little black girls were able to proudly wear their crowns. Crowns constructed of textured, kinky curls thick as wool and shiny as molasses. 

 

I had a dream that one day little black boys were viewed as future doctors and engineers rather than criminals, thugs and gangsters.

 

I had a dream that one day little Mexican kids weren’t pried away from the arms of their mothers and thrown into a metal cages like simple animals.

 

I had a dream that one day little Asian children weren’t classified as test scores or expected to perform on college level in the third grade. 

 

I had a dream that one day Natives weren’t forced to live on reservations or slaughtered like pigs.

 

But these remained just that, they remained dreams

 

How dare I dream of a world where a girl like me can walk down the street without a grown man feeling the urge to comment on my physique 

 

Or a brown boy like him can walk into a store without being followed down each and every aisle

 

When I can’t even live in a world that isn’t rooted in prejudice and defined by social constructs 

 

The truth is that no matter how much I dream I will continue to live in world where Keisha is pretty for a dark skin girl

 

Where Kim Li is blamed for a virus half way across the world all because of her almond eyes

 

Where Jose is threatened with deportation and a wall built with hatred and layered with racism

 

Where Dashawn is taught how to fear a white man in blue and rely on sports as his only means of getting into college

 

Where Mohammad is labeled as a terrorist and told his religion promotes violence and hatred

 

Where Fatma is married off to her second cousin against her will and forced to bear him babies at the tender age of 12

 

Now as to God I’m confessing all my sins, all my mistakes, all my wrongdoings

How dare I close my eyes 

 

By blocking it out I am condoning its existence, I am allowing it to take root within my world, and harm those like me.

 

To harm those who are targeted over things they can not change, things that define them and their family.

 

I can no longer dream, for my silence is a betrayal to those with no voice and leads to my own self-deception