Knowing Youself, Changing YOUR Future

This is an image of Jesus Colon. Colon was a black man living in a racist time barrier. He is Hispanic, which means an American who's first language was Spanish. Colon doesn't have enough confidence in himself to help a white woman with children, when he knew he should have.

Jesus didn't help this young woman because she was white and alone, with three children, and it was late at night on a subway. What he was thinking is that she would have called the police.

People were segregated back at those times, and Colon didn't help her because of that. He didn't have enough self confidence in himself to help someone else who might have needed the help.

If Colon was a white man, I think he would have helped that young lady. He would have had the confidence to do so, but being white doesn't mean having a good heart. That white man could just ignore her, but Colon wanted to help, he had a good heart.

How we define ourselves change how others think of us because what we think of ourselves, it shapes our personality. For example, I think of myself as a bit of an outcast, socially awkward and intelligent. What I think of myself, makes me what I am.

When other people tell you what you see in yourself, the outcome could be positive or negative. If they say you are a "freak", well obviously that's negative. But what if they told you that you were always there for them, and extremely kind? That would give you a major confidence boost wouldn't it? What people say about you will always affect you whether you like it or not.

This poem is mainly about The Island. Reading it I can make many connections from this poem, and that story book.

What Do We Do with a Variation?

What do we do with a difference?
Do we stand and discuss its oddity
or do we ignore it?
Do we shut our eyes to it
or poke it with a stick?
Do we clobber it to death?
Do we move around it in rage
and enlist the rage of others?
Do we will it to go away?
Do we look at it in awe
or purely in wonderment?
Do we work for it to disappear?
Do we pass it stealthily
Or change route away from it?
Do we will it to become like ourselves?
What do we do with a difference?
Do we communicate to it,
let application acknowledge it
for barriers to fall down?

The poem relates to The Island, because it describes differences. In The Island the village people send an innocent man to his death, JUST because he was DIFFERENT!! The line "Do we shut our eyes to it or poke it with a stick?" This line seems to be directly directed to The Island. You see, in The Island the village men decided to poke this innocent naked man into a hut, and at the end, they pushed him out to sea where they all knew he would die.