Colours, or the bonbons of Leopold II

When you told me

the biggest human

genocide

took place in the “Belgian”

Congo, I cursed my

homeroom teacher,

my biased

curriculum,

the Hershey’s bar

I’d grab at noon

from the squalid

cafeteria, in tones of

brown & black,

the white that claimed

vanilla.

It was like the Holocaust

on hormones, or the energy

from cocoa, causing you to

kill a little

faster, twice as many

victims at half

the price.

If they would have

been fair as ivory,

with orbs of sapphire-

blue; a field of wheat

for hair, I swear

we would have known.

I wouldn’t have waited

a hundred years

to learn from a

TikTok reel.

It’s 2025, I’ve heard

the pundits shrug.

Nothing has any

colour anymore.

The mocha of

west Darfur—the girl who isn’t

worthy of a name?

She’s a simple, spinning numeral

in my Insta’s

algorithm, like the wheel

from Price is Right,

when dollars

have more value in

our tallies.

Or consider young

Ahmad, crawling

between the concrete

of his freshly fallen

home, thinking his newly

chalked-up skin

will mean the world will

stop & care: he starves

in Gaza’s sand,

will no more see

his olive epidermis,

win the prize

that comes when mercy’s

dipped in bleach,

the peace & pale of

doves, a heart that says it’s

chocolate but it’s not.

Andreas Gripp

June 26, 2025

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