Throughstone #10: What Part About Brown Do You Not Like?

Because I can’t figure where you’re drawing the line. Is it when it veers toward black? Or yellow? Or red? Or maybe one degree past Caucasian tan? 

Do you prefer the color wheel or the spectrum to draw your imaginary line of pigmented hate? Perhaps neither. Maybe you see it as geography (also imagined lines)? Or chronology—a specific year or event?

Maybe it’s food? Have you given up Kung Pao chicken, tacos, Pad Thai, BBQ, and all imported caffeine? Have you figured out what a truly white meal is? No, it can’t be white rice. Or potatoes. No ketchup—it’s Chinese. No turkey for Thanksgiving. Put away the rum and the tequila. Keep the Cheerios and the Saltines. 

Or is it music? No more blues, banjo, gospel, or steel drums for you. 

Maybe genetics will work? Save yourself some soul-searching and avoid sending in a swab because you won’t be who you think you are and might need therapy. Of course, your Neanderthal tendencies might have helped you avoid any African ancestry. 

Oh, religion is easier, eh? I suspect the manifestation of Jesus as an albino would not have escaped some mention. Those dark-skinned evangelists captured a lot of detail about that Middle Eastern Jew. 

The only thing harder than defining hate with degrees of darkness is finding your way to pure whiteness. If you’re an artist, it’s an absence of pigment. If you’re a scientist, it’s the presence of all colors of light combined. If you’re a racist, it’s nonsense. 

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Thoughts?? Your wisdom is appreciated in the "COMMENTS" box below!

“Throughstone 250” is a purposefully constrained blog project. As a long-winded Southerner constrained by Vermont’s limited porch season and the Yankee penchant for paragraphs of three words or less, I’ve opted to aim for semi-daily reflections of precisely 250 words for the foreseeable future.

250 means something right now. Maybe more than we anticipated. It’s symbolic but incredibly important…and a 250 word count seems much less constrained than a 5-7-5 syllable count for a haiku. 

Like many others, I’m struggling to make meaning out of these tumultuous days. I’ve always found it useful to try and write my way out of tough spots. Looking for throughstones is just one more effort to try and generate some meaning from the mayhem.

More free-ranging rambles here, if you’re so inclined: https://www.freerangeprof.com/blog