What is a human life worth? A young man picking up a half-smoked cigarette from the gutter. A child lying dismembered and blank-eyed in a puddle of her own blood. The same blood, the same breath that thrums its beat through all of us.
The same, for the slick-haired MD hands gripping firmly the back of his chair. The same then for the manicured university student pushing her pedicured feet into name-brand sneakers.
What is a life worth? Two dimes on eyes, a vivid red slash across a wrist. Is it the softened blanket buffering a baby against the world, the silver equivalent to its shaved hair?
No. Life is worth much more than this.
It is a new car, a house with iron-clad pillars. It is a bank balance that sits heavy in your pocket giving you weight amongst your peers.
It is hair burned straight into the submission of society, a society that worships skin a lighter shade of pale. Skin that is not cracked, or bruised, or dimpled.
Skin to sheath only the diet version of your soul.
There is no room here for the undulating layers of womanhood. For freckles and frizz.
There is no place here for the Muslim. The poor. The dark-skinned.
Veritas 