Location: Gaza, Palestine a week after the ceasefire Photograph: Duha Hasan
Colorism
By Lubna Deeb
Colorism
You are a human being
There is no value in black or white
you are before the artillery named as a target
Be careful, your thoughts will not craft
a song for them from the color of your skin.
Remember the sound of the shelling
it does not distinguish between two shades.
In war, red triumphs over all colors.
The night begins with an angry blackness
and ends with an exhausted body wrapped in white.
Every color has a story
And in war, no color is spared from the tale.
It is the story of the human being
For those who lived under tents
Who was separated from loved ones and friends
Who embraced the rubble of walls,
Who struggled for freedom and peace.
I'm the human
The one who searches for humanity in his essence,
In his dreams, and in his journey of existence,
In the message that will become an idea.
A human will be free
Only when his mind is free,
And when he is no longer a slave to colors