Brown on Brown

Brown on Brown

“The Little Mermaid is not black,

she will never be black.

Too much black in video games,

goodness—DEI is taking over”.

I remember when I was in the first grade,

there was no concept of shame,

or worry,

or insecurity,

there was no such thing as brown.

See, I wanted to be just like Justin Bieber,

with the hair swooped to the side,

or the bangs falling in front.

I danced, sang,

and annoyed everyone in the house.

See, I wanted to be just like my heroes on TV,

triumphantly flying sky-high like Superman,

or swinging through the streets like Spider-Man;

how Superman’s hair had that one little strand in the front.

My father was a barber,

I would tell him to make my hair just like Justin’s

and come home wondering,

why all the children at school

would turn my hairdo fool by the end of the day

because it no longer stayed straight in place like so.

Why?

They would ask why my hair looked a frizzy mess?

So I would gel, and straighten,

see the men on TV,

all with their luscious locks that stayed in place all day.

I wondered,

If I could sing Baby, Baby, Baby, ohhhhh,

just right,

how I was any different than Bieber.

See, one day, a child spoke to me,

it was the school fair,

and I wanted a football painted on my face.

As the brown paint brushed beautifully on my brown skin,

a child spoke to me, he said—

“Brown on brown; I’ve never seen that before.”

The way brown sits on brown

seemed to be taboo,

as if the concept of brown-based grouping,

brown-faced bruising,

was uncharted new.

Brown-on-brown was a reminder

that I could never be my heroes,

the reality that no matter

how straightened out my curls were,

or how hard I tried to emulate and assimilate,

there was no real distance between me and Trayvon Martin,

how there was no real distance between me and Emmitt Till.

I wondered,

why all of my heroes, idols, and superstars weren’t brown too.

Why all of the children who marked their faces with footballs

weren’t seen as oxymoronic.

It lingered, echoed—

“Brown on brown.”

(Repeat)

“Brown on brown.”

The only brown I saw that looked like me,

were children and adults plastered on my screen,

not as idols and models,

but as violent criminals who fit exactly

what was expected to be—

brown-on-brown thugs

who aren’t fit for society.

We aren’t seen as human,

hyper-masculine, underrepresented,

and don’t bleed the same.

Brown is seen and resented.

Brown-on-brown isn’t taboo or new;

it is plastered all over the roots of separate but equal.

How brown-on-brown was all that was legal,

that underneath that smokescreen of evil

is the innocent condition of all brown boys

who are seen as lethal.

I wondered,

how my outer appearance

equated to criminal concealed,

how the coils in my hair

were destined for criminal court appeal.

I wanted to rewrite my story,

turn back the page,

erase the brown that made up my face,

undo the family tree that decided my race.

So when you ask why black-in-white spaces are so important,

I’ll remind you of the decades

when brown-on-brown was all that was legal,

of the brown stacked on brown,

as the Portuguese sailed,

of the brown stacked on brown

that fills the prison cells,

of the brown-on-brown

that fill impoverished communities.

And I’ll remind you—

that attempted unity gets shot down

with unfair impunity,

that when black leaders rise,

they are viewed as insane and lunacy.

The brown that fills the television screen,

the hair that curls,

is an indirect message to all of the black boys and girls,

that they are everything and more.

That we are more than the slaves

who washed up shore,

more than the men portrayed in media

who glorify gore,

more than the aggressive black girl

who snaps, claps, and stomps on the floor,

more than the thief

with his gun drawn trying to rob the store.

We are more.

That we can be presidential material,

that brown-on-brown can be Mrs. Vice President,

and that all of our hidden talents

is evident in the black stories written in music.

That we can be lawyers, doctors, writers, in government,

for all the black children who stare at their screens,

the pixels that glare show black,

in majority-white spaces,

that brown doesn’t have to mean impending death,

but Supreme Court steps.

We are so much more.

The Little Mermaid,

Miles Morales,

gives the little black boy in me hope—

because they show,

that our lives don’t have to be one big allegory.

Because when we rise from the floor,

we don’t have to muster

the strength of the pen

being mightier than the sword.

We can speak up, act up,

and exist with the capacity for human emotion.

The constant reminder that in the moonlight,

black boys look blue,

that we are so much more

than supposed taboo.

The little boy in me

can look up to the sky and know—

that our galaxy is my limit,

that my hair is beautiful,

my culture is beautiful,

my skin is beautiful,

and that I am so much more

than the stigma that surrounds,

that my brown-on-brown

is something I’ve never seen before—

because I am so much more.

copyright © micah hill 2025