SKIN by Mahima Kedlaya

Skin is the thin layer of tissue forming the natural outer covering of the body of a person or animal. Skin was made to protect our bodies, serving as a shield from mechanical impacts and pressure, variations in temperature, micro-organisms, radiation, and chemicals. This matter that was made to ensure our safety as living beings, holds the power to poison man’s mind turning one against another. The small differences in the pigmentation of one’s skin have ruled over us, dividing us, tormenting us, and slowly destroying us. The color that our body’s armor chose is able to determine our worth, how dangerous we are seen as, and even our chance of survival. We are all human, we are all made the same way, we are all made with the same flesh and bones. How does something as insignificant as the color of our skin result in so much violence, oppression, and segregation? For hundreds of years, people of color have faced cruelty, torture, and shame for something they could not control, something we are all born into. People do not choose to be black, nor do people do not choose to be white. So how does something we are powerless against have such a large effect on our society? Countless lives have been lost all due to the shade of someone’s skin. It can be compared to something as simple as coloring. There are various colors of crayons in a box, but they are all made the same way – a mixture of wax is poured into a mold, then hardened and removed. Although the mixtures are different due to diverse pigmentations, they are all composed of the same ingredients. How can you choose to limit, hurt, or even kill someone just due to a small difference in color that was added into our makeup as human beings? How does that justify murder? How does that minor thing result in centuries of inhumanity? Skin was made for the sole purpose of protecting our bodies from toxins and other dangers, but it has also poisoned the minds of many. Poisoned them to think that one color is superior to another, that one color is less dangerous, that one color is more deserving of life.