You see the dark, turbaned stranger
speaking jibberish on the news
and you don't understand
how he talks
or how he lives
or what he believes,
so you react with the automatic hate
born of half-truths and prejudices
ingrained and inbred for generations.

And it doesn't occur to you
that he is simply another fellow being.

Doesn't he breathe air just like you?
Doesn't his blood bleed just as red?
Doesn't he have a mother and father somewhere, too?
Isn't he capable of falling in love,
of being hungry,
and of believing in something greater than himself?
Isn't he capable of feeling pain
and greif
and joy
and hate
and fear
and pride?

He had a childhood, just like you.
He, too, can catch a cold
and his bones break the same as yours.
He needs sleep and shelter, food and warmth,
just as much as you
and he, too, worries about his family.
He needs light to see by
and clean water to drink
as much as anyone you know.
He, too, fears what he doesn't understand,
and to him, you are the stranger.

And yet somehow you fail to recognize
that all this makes him
the same as you.

08/26/2003

Posted on 08/26/2003
Copyright © 2024 Amanda J Cobb