Skin Deep

As the saying goes, "beauty is only skin deep".

During the month of July, I began a poetry project called "Skin Deep" in which I collected poems from my friends and myself expressing the felt experiences of racism. The inspiration for this project is to showcase the very real & very local everyday instances of racial prejudice.

It's much easier to separate ourselves from what we see happening on social media to people we don't know than to actively practice empathy. When it's not occurring right outside of our house, we can fall under the illusion that it's not happening at all.

That's why, through this project, I hope to bring to light that racism isn't just on Fox News and TikTok. It's in the design of our schools, neighborhoods, family dynamics, and in the lives of people you see everyday.

"Skin Deep" stems from the idea that the subjective idea of beauty and race creates an objectively undesirable society for nonwhite people of color to live in.

Thank you for reading what we have to say. Here's a poem I wrote today. "Skin Deep" collection to follow after.

- and then i grew up

once upon a time, there was a girl. she

Download SHE • 928KB

- chinese, japanese, koreanese, look at these

- black face in a white place

- don't all black people know this?

- what you're not

- not fair but still lovely

-black and yellow

skin deep.zip

Download ZIP • 11.44MB

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"Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly"

John 7:24