Every day I wake up from my bed and the first thing that comes into my head

Is what I am

They say that first you are a soul, and then you are human before you are a woman

I believe a white person said this because just like always

To them ignorance is bliss

What happened to me being black before I am any of those things?

Because my skin colour seems to be clear enough when I step foot in that Zara

store

Oh but when it suits you, you seem to ignore

That to you all I am is a metaphor.

 

Being black is like being a living breathing metaphor

A metaphor of struggle, poverty, impurity

But oh hell you still want me to fight for female unity

When more than half of my black community

Still lives below the bread line,

For this is a result of you whipping my people clean of their pride?

 

I am not a woman before I am black because you have made it quite clear

That I am part of the uncivilised barbarian pack... The Moors.

And while I am sitting here watching Geordie Shore

My people are out acting like whores, because black slavery

Has led them to being enslaved by their own bodies.

 

Oh and please Master I forgot to say this at the beginning of this poem,

But please Master this Kaffer pleads; do not rip my words apart and shackle them

In chains for our brains have adapted to that restraint.

So if you dare try me be ready for the wrath that is me.

For I will no longer ignore the fact that my people still fight

To be a part of ‘this world’, no scratch that... ‘Your world’

 

Ignorance is bliss they say

Oh but ignorance is far from bliss and in fact

I hope that with this blizzard of words

I might just cut through your ignorant words

Because damn they do hurt

But oh damn I forgot,

Your bodies were made for such temperatures right?

 

We are all assumedly feminists

But how the hell are we going to fight against our male oppressors TOGETHER

When you ignore the fact that you still think I am a nigg... African;

Darkness, tainting your ‘purity’?

Oh and please don’t ignore the fact that ‘black privilege’ is an oxymoron

And I am sorry to call my own father a moron

 

Because oh hell he is talented...

That man is a world-class artist

Oh don’t you dare think that Picasso is on his level

Because my father has perfected the art of disappointment like no other

It’s not a surprise that I haven’t seen him for five years either

I guess it’s become my normal.

 

Smile they say, it’s over they say, you’re so black they say

Oh I am black am I?

I didn’t realise that for almost seventeen years I have not known who I am

I look in the mirror everyday and mistake myself for white?

Trust me that is impossible to do since your cold stares have it boldly written

‘BLACK’

Every single second of every single day

Damn and please don’t tell me how black I am when you don’t

Even know what being black is.

 

Oh I don’t mean to make you feel uncomfortable but damn I hope this makes you

Feel uncomfortable because it makes me feel uncomfortable standing here

Saying this to you right now

But God help me if I have to go another day with these shackles tightly wrapped

Around my voice.

 

You’re a woman they say, stand up for what you believe in they say, be different

They say

Don’t you dare tell me to be feminist when there are still racists out there

Before we fight for gender equality we need to fight for race unity

Because until all races can be treated as one, there is no way on earth

Females can fight as one

 

This is my last line so you better listen up;

Until your paint pallet is tainted with black and white together

Creating that grey pigment,

Let us not talk about being a ‘feminist’

Let us talk about me being a BLACK woman.