Brown

They called us brown.

And little.

Never mind the “brothers” part,

Which was probably sarcastic anyway.

It made sense, for us to hate brown

Because it was the color of dirt and grime and rot

It was an unpleasant color.



But brown is also the color of our skin,

The color of the sun-kissed earth

And the pottery it is used to make,

The color of kapeng barako and tablea,

Of narra and all the other trees.

It is the color of our eyes and the eyes of our forefathers,

Who looked upon the sun-kissed earth

And its sun-kissed people

Then decided that they were worth fighting for.

Brown is the color of their blood,

Spilled and dried for our freedom.

Brown fought for us, brown was us.



Why must we erase it from ourselves

With papaya soap and glutathione?

We are a brown people,

And perhaps brown we should remain.