Who would choose to be black?

To have dark skin?

Dark brown eyes?

A wide nose?

Or yellow skin?

A round face?

Not-so-blue eyes?

Who would choose this?

If given a choice, if you could go to the store…

And pick out a kid?

Now remember, like every parent, you want your kid to have a happy life. 

Successful, easy, fulfilled…

All those things.

So, don’t blonds have more fun?

OK, so those of you who bleach your hair,

Would you choose to have blond kids? 

Skip the bleach?

Or, for those who bleach their skin…

Would you tweak your kid’s DNA to give them lighter skin?

Or a more narrow, acauline nose?

Thinner calves and longer legs?

Plumper lips and longer eyelashes?

Or double eye-lids?

An angular jawline?

Breast size?

Would you have a kid that looked like you?

Do you hate yourself so much that if given the choice,

Would you erase you?

https://www.buzzfeed.com/chrisstokelwalker/when-does-plastic-surgery-become-racial-transformation

There is a race for technology right now…

One that would allow gene editing,

And needless to say, I don’t mean ‘jean’ editing like painting your denim,

Or taking a pair of shears to them, trimming them in places, selectively poking holes in others…

Needless to say, I don’t mean that, 

But, ‘genes’ as in genetics,

As in DNA editing.

And not just going to a doctor to choose to have a kid- or not.

And no, I don’t mean going to a medical professional and having them test you and your partner’s blood to see if you both carry the same deteriorating genes.

Did you know that 

In some places, if you and your fiancé carry the gene for some diseases, then 

The state won’t sanction your relationship.

And no, I don’t mean like your fiancé being of the so-called wrong religion or the same gender.

But what about so-called diseases like Huntington’s Disease? 

There are literally a litany of diseases that require better research and funding just to save lives.

And they jailed that doctor in China who gene-edited HIV immunity.

Though clearly  more people are willing to pay for a thinner nose than a Sickle Cell test.

But now we have designer babies: Eye color, intelligence and height?

Freckles?

Earwax stickiness can be selected in a lab.

Fertility clinics routinely remove cells from embryos to check for diseases, sex, eye-color…

But you can go to the shop on the corner now, and 

Change your hair color, and 

On the next corner, you can change boring brown eyes to blue, magenta, hazel…

Anything but boring brown of the majority of the planet, BTW.

Select babies?

I am black.

And gay.

And in spite of my many other attributes – like my faith, my values or my politics –

These two singular characteristics have uniquely marked my life.

What if I could change these?

Being gay has caused me to doubt my own mother’s love,

Doubt my own allegiance to my community due to open homophobia towards me.

For many, now,

A gay foetus is NOT a viable foetus.

For them, gays are an ugly smear that must be erased. 

Gay life is so abhorrent that they cause it harm at every turn…

Eschewing every opportunity god gives them to show compassion.

Would you edit us out of existence?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2943351/Scalpel-scalpel-Michael-Jackson-destroyed-looks-100-operations-d-looked-without-surgery.html