The goal of this project is to start a positive, engaging conversation on race and get the voices of underrepresented cultures heard.
This is Our Beauty by Mira Costa High School. The 2017 Our Beauty project was held on March 11 from 2-3 pm. |
Submissions
Kynnedi Hoyer
All the Light
They don’t listen to me when I speak
They are simply waiting for their turn to talk
And most of the time they aren’t even waiting
Their words climb over mine and they wrap them around my neck
Hate is so deafening
It fills every crevice of the silent stillness
The humidity rising from the cracks in the ground until I can’t breathe
Until I’m suffocating
Silence does not speak volumes when you have so much to say
I’m swimming and drowning in words that aren’t my own
Trying to find a voice in the middle of an ocean
Filled with waves much taller than mine
And they keep pushing my head down
No one knows what it’s like to be known before you are known
I open the glass door and my thick black skin full of big black anger proceeds me
I’m “too loud” before I’ve even opened my mouth
I have “too much attitude” where I am shy
Too much hair growing out of my head
Too many curves
I am too much of everything they are not
So they put me in a glass display and dress me up real pretty
Rip off a strip of duct tape and place it over my lips
Charge five dollars at the door and showcase me to everyone
I am not your “black friend”
I’m tired of being just your black friend
But I float above it all
I am black
But it is not a weakness
My blackness will not be cast aside and into the shadows
Back into submission
Back into silence
I speak
I speak
I speak
In colors you cannot even fathom
And I will be heard
They don’t listen to me when I speak
They are simply waiting for their turn to talk
And most of the time they aren’t even waiting
Their words climb over mine and they wrap them around my neck
Hate is so deafening
It fills every crevice of the silent stillness
The humidity rising from the cracks in the ground until I can’t breathe
Until I’m suffocating
Silence does not speak volumes when you have so much to say
I’m swimming and drowning in words that aren’t my own
Trying to find a voice in the middle of an ocean
Filled with waves much taller than mine
And they keep pushing my head down
No one knows what it’s like to be known before you are known
I open the glass door and my thick black skin full of big black anger proceeds me
I’m “too loud” before I’ve even opened my mouth
I have “too much attitude” where I am shy
Too much hair growing out of my head
Too many curves
I am too much of everything they are not
So they put me in a glass display and dress me up real pretty
Rip off a strip of duct tape and place it over my lips
Charge five dollars at the door and showcase me to everyone
I am not your “black friend”
I’m tired of being just your black friend
But I float above it all
I am black
But it is not a weakness
My blackness will not be cast aside and into the shadows
Back into submission
Back into silence
I speak
I speak
I speak
In colors you cannot even fathom
And I will be heard
Ali Wu
Lucy McDonald
Halle Burke
Merita Lundstrom
All work is created or preformed by students at Mira Costa High School. Do not copy works without giving credit to the artists.