primary colors

Primary Colors

by Angela C. Orlando

There once was a world in which everybody was red. All the men
and women were red. The boys and girls were red. Even the dogs
and cat were red.

But for some reason that no one ever understood, sometimes a
red mother would give birth to a blue baby.

The people of the red world did not know what to do with these
blue babies. Obviously, they couldn't grow up among the red.
They were much too different. So they were sent away to a
special land just for blue people. There these children would
live among their own kind, have their own blue language and
their own blue culture.

Some red mothers just couldn't bear to part from their blue
babies. The mothers loved their babies and wanted to keep them
close. After all, these mothers didn't ask to be hosts for a
new race. The blue babies were their offsprings, their flesh
and blood. Why couldn't people learn to accept blue babies
and treat them the same as everyone else?

It just didn't work that way. These children were NOT like
everyone else. They were blue, while everyone else was red.
That's a difference that can't be ignored.

So doctors invented a great new medicine that would turn blue
babies into red babies. The mothers and fathers were so excited.
Finally, their blue children could be normal!

This, too, was not so successful. Instead of becoming red, the
medicine turned those blue babies yellow. Now these children
were rejected by both the red and the blue. They weren't red
enough to be accepted by the main culture, and they weren't
blue so they couldn't be part of that group. There wasn't even
a special land for them to find peace in a yellow world. They
were different no matter where they went. They always would
be. Oh, those poor yellow babies!

Why do we have to live in a world of primary colors? It must be
all or nothing... red or blue. There's no in between.

If only we could mix and blend. Then we would get the beauty of
the blue, the voice of the red and the strength of the yellow.

Red, blue and yellow. Orange, green and purple. A rainbow of
colors. A world of acceptance and understanding. A place where
all can belong. That is my colorful dream.

Revised August, 2011