My name is Cornelius Edie.

I'm a poet, playwright and songwriter.

This is a poem I wrote about my father.

One of the things my father never liked about me was my dark skin.

You used to be so pretty, was the way he'd put it, and it was true.

There is proof.

A baby picture of a curly haired, just a hairs breath away from fair skin child, me.

My small fingers bowed up into fists.

And then, as if some god shrugged, and suddenly turned away its gaze, something caved in,

and I was dark.

And all that it implied.

So what happened?

You used to look real good.

My father, a man of slightly lighter hue, would say to me, his son, his changeling.

Maybe you ought to wash more.

If the poem, and my father's words, seem harsh.

This one should consider the world from which they're made.

Perhaps behind my father's desire for me, to have what he saw as pretty, fair, skin,

lies another truth.

He knew that being a black man in America carried risk.

We have two more names to add to a list of African-Americans killed by police officers.

This young officer, I don't know what she was thinking, but I'm very, very troubled

...