#zephtali

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Video By Button Poetry

Some context:

Oreo is a term used to describe certain black people who don't have mannerisms, accent, etc. usually stereotyped to their skin color.  Simply put, it's someone who's dark on the outside and white on the inside thus the term "oreo."

The link above is of how one young man responded after a girl called him an oreo.  I've transcribed his spoken word below.

Oreo by Tucker Bryant

I miss the days when junkfood could pass through my stomach faster than a train without brakes.

When I was a kid

I gobbled enough gobstoppers to finance my dentist's Mercedes'

and chewed through chocolates and my face exploded in a collage of pimples like pepporoni pizza because...

Who needs middle school crushes when they've got Hershey's Kisses?

The art of snacking was always carefree and fleeting until I had my first Oreo.

There I was.

Swallowing them whole while the other kids would twist them apart - Licking off the cream before discarding of the brown shells like used Kleenex.

Stacey said, "The white part just tastes better."

The irony of all this is that my mother used to say that "You are what you eat." But the first time somebody called me an "oreo" nothing about this skin felt sweet.

When somebody tells you, that You're not "really black"

They'll smile a shade of ingorance that expects you to wear their words like a medal.

They expect you to cling to those words as if their bigotry is the closest thing your hands will ever come to touching white privilege

When somebody calls you an "Oreo"

They'll hit the emergency ejection button on their throat

and force a laugh that assures you

that you'd be a fool to be offended because this is a pat on the head.

This how they thank you

For not forcing them to swallow the parts of you that don't sit right in their stomachs

in their suburbs

in their supremacies

Stacey

Thank you for proving that you don't have to call me your "dog" to make me feel like you own me.

You--

You are the reason I cannot lift my hand in a lecture hall without feeling like a traitor to my own complexion.

As if the only way for me to jump start my career was to stand on a freethrow line.

She called me an "Oreo" because I was the first shade of brown that she hadn't seen on the O'Reilly show I was the first shade of brown that hadn't been served to her in a Starbucks Coffee cup.

And white-washing

White-washing is adding creamer to your coffee because you've become dependent on artificial sweenter to make it easier to swallow.

Because you love the caffeine but can't stand how bitterly the blackness binds to your tongue.

But forgive me

For refusing to sugarcoat my skin whenever you need a pick me up.

Your compliments are as hollow as a paper mache smile

and I refuse to shake hands with somebody who thinks that mine belong in cuffs.

Blackness is not something we abandon the moment we grow too large to fit your television screen and I will never, ever -

Ever stay silent to the world that expects me to leap out of my own ancestry Just to earn its approval because acceptance -

Acceptance means more than looking for a mirror inside somebody else

What makes you think that the best we could be was a reflection of you?

So pardon my french, but fuck you and your oreo, Klondike bars and York Peppermint Patties!

Stop calling us candy!

You're feeding us empty calories they

will never