I see people by the color of my eyes. Sometimes they're black, dark, sinister, marauding. Others they're yellow, standoffish and rove like wild hyenas. They're also brown, usually drunk with little regard for my rights of possessions, health, family or safety.

I've come to hate my eyes. All of them. As my lids shut, scrawling through the night are the memories which define each: Wetbacks, will beat women, always drunk. Nigger; bigger, usually stronger, spat on my back when I was 8, in riot will shoot you.

Open and awake, I quiet them, daring not to glance to long hoping never to catch another glare. I recently read that metaphors guide our thinking. When I look out onto the streets these metaphors take shape in a persons walk, the way the stand against a wall, their standing against a wall, as well as the numbers of group. When my eyes are white they behave the same way; are they over 6 foot, are they loud, have they been drinking, will my Mexican skin tone make them a mark.

In this country we'd like to say we've overcome racism having fought hard to pave the way towards equal rights under the law, but this is not so and never will be true. The color of our eyes never fades. The pain behind them never fully washes away and there are too many metaphors walking about to ever hope avoiding them. Rather, we live in a society where we've come to stay them clear, keep them clear, and clear them away. We do so by flocking into like-skinned neighborhoods, by ridiculing, pressuring and driving others away. We build long border fences and tall prison walls.

Yet, we make it legal to perpetuate racism. We've removed syllables and left the meaning of the "N" word. We've taken strides to reduce it's appearance in the media but have done very little to negate its effect in real life. We allow swirl to distract us from addressing racism at its fiercest point where it contest equality and instead become consumed in th hype and claims of over dramatization.

We have allowed society through affirmative action and political correctness to reduce our opportunity to address racism. It is our obligation as people of ethnicity to find and support a long-term solution where all of racism history in this country is embraced. Where solutions provided by Dr. King and Malcolm X are explored, where we can retain in full view the symbols of our pain history as learning tool for future generation and not to have them destroyed like unsavory propaganda by a new ruling order.

The efforts of Mrs. Parks, Dr. King, Malcolm X, have never been fully explored. Certainly we have made strides, but we continue to look upon each other as different while not allowing each group to be the same. Every group has the right of self-determination and as long as these rights are administered by an agent outside of each ethnicity, true equality will never be understood.