I AM

'I am
 the African-American woman
  raising the children of the white family.

I am
  the Mexican farmer,
  laboring now in the fields
  of the Americans.

I am
  the Vietnamese woman
  cleaning the kitchen
  of the wealthy Vietnamese.

I AM.

Do you not see me?
  Can you not feel my pain?
  Are you so lost in the image
  you have created for yourself
  that you can not recognize
  my humanity?

Why do you feel it necessary
  that I toil on your ground
  in order to prove that you
  are, somehow, better?

Why is it okay to treat me
  with less respect than you
  save for your dog?

How do you imagine that
  I feed my children
  on the wages you pay me?

And how do you think
  I can raise my children
  when you require my presence
  15-hours a day?

Can you not prepare your own meals,
  raise your own children,
  clean your own mess?

I don't understand.

I give so much,
  yet, you recognize me not.

And, somehow, in the reduction
  of me, you believe that
  you gain stature and worth.

Is it really true that wealth
  is the measure of human worth?

Interesting that if the toil of labor,
  instead,
  were the measure of worth,
  you would find yourself
  at the
  bottom.

Not that I want to be exalted over you,
  for in doing that, I would be perpetuating
  this violence that you practice against humankind.

No, I don't want that.
  And, I don't need for you to loose
  yourself from your wealth.

But, I do recognize that your worldly
  wealth, and your pursuit of it,
  narrows your vision and constrains
  your ability to find compassion in your self.

I do recognize that your worldly stature
  and your pursuit of it, blinds you to
  the richness that is life,
  the wealth that can not be measured
  in gold or silver.

I feel the pain and emptiness of your soul grow,
  even as your worldly riches expand beyond measure.
  I see a shell of a person, clad in the most royal of clothes,
  with soulless eyes and a heart hardened
  by the necessity of NOT seeing
  the horror that your 'climb to success'
  inflicts on others.'

A wise man once said that it is harder for
  a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven
  than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.