I Should Be the Poster Boy for Colored People

At Christmas I tend to go red-cheeked for the holidays. Tell me that's not colorful!

The NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) is not terribly interested in me as a member. For one thing, I'm not black, native American or Latino. If I were Asian they would only be slightly more interested in me. Secondly, I'm a conservative and vote Republican and that by itself will cost you your colored card. Now if you are Democrat and progressive, you get a pass. Democrats like Rachel Dolezal or Elizabeth Warren can fudge their racial credentials because, unlike me, they are liberals and therefore, by progressive groupthink, cannot be other than what they say they are. Even the palest President in a century, Bill Clinton can get away with calling himself the "first black president" in US History because he carries the right party card.

I would like to make the case that I am, in fact, "colored" despite the abuse I'm going to take from my progressive friends for saying so. Why?  Let me enumerate.....

1. I am, in fact, not white, but a pale pink - sometimes more of a beige! This is my natural state. If I am white, my wife will say, "You look terrible!" and put me into bed with a hot water bottle and aspirin.
2. Sometimes, in winter, I am a pale blue!  If I sit too close to a fireplace I turn a nice cherry red.
3. In summer, I go a nice light brown or tan color. If I spend too much time in the sun, I go a bright red except on my butt which remains a pasty white by contrast.
4. If I get sick I turn yellow sometimes and again get sent to bed with a hot water bottle and Tylenol (in case it's the flu - she doesn't want me to get Reye's syndrome from taking aspirin)*
5. Also, the fact is that WHITE is a color. In fact it is all colors put together. Ironically, the color black is actually an absence of reflected colors.

In point of fact, then, I'M A RAINBOW! I'm all kind of colors all at once. Not in the LGBTLSMFT sense, mind you, but I am actually a blending of many colors. So when you are talking about colored folk, I demand you include me in that group. I'm a color too! My politics or religion should have nothing to do with whether or not I'm a colored person. The great truth is that we're all colored people and once we get used to that idea, we can stop shoving people into artificial groups by the color of their skins. A wise man once said that what's really most important is not the color of our skin but the content of our character.

All us colored folk say, "Amen, Dr. King. Amen!"

© 2018 by Tom King


* I know Reye's Syndrome only happens to kids, and I know that I'm 64 years old, but my Sweet Baboo knows me all too well and she isn't so sure I'm grown up enough to be immune to childhood diseases yet.