I had performed this poem at a Black History Month (BHM) event in October 2013. I love the first paragraph of this poem as it was inspired not only by the struggles of those with a different skin... but those who are considered 'different' (i.e. not accepted) by those who (wrongly) view themselves as superior because of others so called 'difference'. Different because of their accent, hair type/ still/ colour, gender, sexual orientation, weight/ size/ height and the list goes on and on and on...
Still Enslaved
We rose out of freedom
Yet we still walk these streets enslaved like modern day
slaves
Shackled to the ball and chain of discrimination
Into a system that judges difference down the tip of its
nose
We rose out of freedom
Yet the next generation have no idea where they come from
The land that their parents and grand-parents walked on
The real story that needs to be told across this nation
Its not all about us packed liked sardines on slave ships
riding the rough cold seas
We rose out freedom
Yet we still frown at our own reflection
Unhappy with the image watching and wishing
Ourselves to be in a completely different skins
We rose out of freedom
Yet a sense of us and I has been lost in this diversity
Buried in the realms of multi culturalism
The negativity of the melting pot ideology
We need to be passing down our culture and history to the
next generation
We rose out of freedom
Yet low self esteem is consuming our daughters
Unhappy with the kink in their hair and the black features
that makes them
They are beautiful and they need to be told
They are beautiful
We rose out of freedom
Yet as a community we are dis-united
Diseased by divide and conquer are we
Fooled into believing we are better than the other are we
It is time to truly love your brothers and sisters
Because together we stand and divided we fall
We rose out of freedom
We rose out of freedom
And like Mayo Angelo once cried
Still we shall rise
Copyright © 2013 Sonneteer Articulates (aka Traysi Matthew, Traysi Speaks)
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