Little Girl with a Curl

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Why did my dolls have to look like me?

Even if my mommy explained it,

I would not understand.

Weren’t we all the same?

 

Brick building. Welcome sign. White skin.

I was meant to feel like I was welcome,

Meant to fit in.

 

Does a little girl really to need fit in when she’s so young?

All she needs is to play outside and laugh and run around.

Not the case if you have brown skin and big hair.

Why?

 

Beautiful girl

With a beautiful

Curl.

In a world that doesn’t love her.

 

She doesn’t know yet,

But one day I bet that when she looks out the window at her flowers of different

Shades

Of purples, pinks, and browns,

Racism and ignorance will rain down on her,

 Washing away her roots,

Blinding her from knowing about the kings and queens of which she originated.

 

She will go to school and look around and see that no one looks like her.

Picking and teasing

Her big hair and dark skin,

A difference the other children do not and will not understand.

 

Her parents will try to hide the evils of the world from her best they can,

But one day that little girl will grow up and realize the meaning of all this.

 

She sits in class trying to learn math,

And her teacher will joke

“Get your cotton picking hands off of that!”

 

And maybe at first she will not understand, but she will need someone to take her hand

And guide her through this land.

 

The land of the free.

The land of the free.

The land of the free.

She sang

Before the school assembly

That she was free,

Lived in the land of the

Free.

 

But was she?