This post is not about an egg chocolate with a surprise inside. It is about what’s underneath the color of your skin (no, no, not blood and muscles!!!). I mean metaphorically, what’s behind the obvious, that we all share: the privilege of being alive, the ability to express love, virtues, qualities and so on. The surprises inside the shell of a human being are endless, whatever his color or cultural background.
This post is about acceptance and freedom from the past.
Why do I refer to the chocolate then? As you may have understood by now, my mother is white and my father is black and I grew up surrounded mostly by white people. Like the KINDER surprise chocolate, I am black outside and white inside (with a few surprises!)
A few years ago, I saw a documentary about racist/extremist group – white AND black – in Europe, with their links to groups in the US and Canada. I was speechless in front of what I heard. There was so much ignorance, fear and hurt on both sides. I wrote this poem right after. I read it publicly (in Canada and the US) numerous times with always the same reactions. 1) Half the room cried after a few lines, the other half was just speechless 2)Some people were not aware that kind of racism still existed 3)Some people didn’t know that poetry could be something else than “roses are red”.
So I share it with you, with my brown skin and my white mind. Peace.
Battle of nations
Talk to me about pain of a nation
Screaming out loud its right to survive
Talk to me about wounds of another nation
Screaming out loud its right to exist
Talk to me about God with hate in your souls
Guns in your hands pointed to my head
Talk to me with anger about your chains and painful songs
While brothers are hanging on Christmas trees
Supremacy of blood soaking the earth
How many more deaths? How many more kills?
Unending stories told centuries after the next
Dressed in white garments, processions of death
Dark power rising from the blood with colour
Demanding gold for each soul dismembered
Fighting with the same weapons the other side of history
Processions of resentment and avenging fury
Rights and freedom spoken in many words
Painful, hopeful, meaningless and empty
Will I be free in front of the hordes?
Masses of skin bags holders of righteousness
Will I be free to breathe? Me, the product of bestiality
Both sides looking at me like an error of nature
Words of pain never spoken as peace is forgotten
But living in my flesh as a vibrant testimony
Battle of two virtual nations going on through my veins
Will I hold my mother responsible for the chains holding my skin?
Will I hold my father responsible for the inherited anger?
Can I cry the sorrows of many and then be free?
I heard your pain through the thickness of your rage
I spoke softly to the clouded hearts of the growing crowds
But my skin is too dark, to be considered
My words too white, to be remembered
With great respect and love!
A.
I stole this idea from the blog of Rosie Amber: give links to other A to Z challenger for you to discover:
1) http://samanthaandersonauthor.com/
3) http://joeowensblog.wordpress.com/
4) http://ficticiousamo.wordpress.com/
5) http://damyantiwrites.wordpress.com/
Happy Hour with Pablo and Lolaz 