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  • I am not black.

  • I mean, that's what the world calls me, but it's not me.

  • I didn't come out of my mother's womb saying, "Hey everybody. I'm black."

  • No, I was taught to be black, and you were taught to call me that,

  • along with whatever you call yourself is just a label.

  • See, from birth, the world force-feeds us these labels,

  • and eventually we all swallow them.

  • We digest and accept the labels, never ever doubting them, but there's one problem.

  • Labels are not you and labels are not me.

  • Labels are just labels, but who we truly are is not skin-deep.

  • See, when I drive my car, no one would ever confuse the car for me.

  • Well when I drive my body, why did you confuse me for my body?

  • It's my body. Get it? Not me.

  • Let me break it down.

  • See, our bodies are just cars that we operate and drive around.

  • The dealership we call society decided to label mine the "black edition".

  • Yours the Irish or White edition.

  • And with no money down, 0% APR, and no test drive, we were forced to own these cars for the rest of our lives.

  • Forgive me, but I fail to see the logic or pride in defining myself or judging another by the cars we drive,

  • because who we truly are is found inside.

  • Listen, I'm not here to tell you how science has concluded that genetically we're all mixed,

  • and race and the human species doesn't exist,

  • or how every historian knows that race was invented in the 15th century to divide people from each other

  • and it has worked perfectly.

  • No. I'm not here to lecture. I just want to ask one question.

  • Who would you be if the world never gave you a label, never gave you a box to check?

  • Would you be white, black, Mexican, Asian, Native American, Middle Eastern, Indian?

  • No. We would be one. We would be together.

  • No longer living in the error of calling human beings black people or white people.

  • These labels that will forever blind us from seeing a person for who they are,

  • but instead, seeing them through the judgmental, prejudicial, artificial filters of who we think they are.

  • And when you let an artificial label define yourself, then, my friend, you have chosen smallness over greatness and minimized yourself, confined and divided yourself from others.

  • And it is an undeniable fact that where there was division, there will be conflict, and conflicts start wars.

  • Therefore, every war has started over labels. It's always us versus them.

  • So the answer to war, racism, sexism and every other ism is so simple that every politician has missed it.

  • It's the labels. We must rip them off.

  • Isn't it funny how no baby is born racist yet every baby cries when they hear the cries of another?

  • No matter the gender, culture or color, proving that deep down, we were meant to connect and care for each other.

  • That is our mission and that is not my opinion. That is the truth.

  • In a world that has sold us fiction, please listen, labels only distort our vision, which is why half of those watching this will dismiss it or feel resistance and conflicted,

  • but just remember, so did the caterpillar, before it broke through its shell and became the magnificent butterfly,

  • Well, these labels are our shells and we must do the same thing, so we can finally spread our wings.

  • Human beings were not meant to be slapped with labels like groceries in supermarkets.

  • DNA cannot be regulated by the FDA.

  • We were meant to be free, and only until we remove them all, and stop living and thinking so small, will we be free.

  • To see ourselves and each other, for who we truly are.

I am not black.

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