"Merely by describing yourself as black you have started a road towards emancipation, you have committed yourself to fight against all forces that seek to use your blackness as a stamp that marks you out as a subservient being." - Steve Biko
I wish I knew what it was that the colour of my pigment holds against the world. For my bare black feet walk on all the riches of this world that you would think I'd become somewhat rooted to wealth. Instead it is I that digs and harvests all the riches from my forefathers land and presents it in a trolley for the master to polish and sell whilst I get the pennies on the buck. We now knock on doors with foundation laid on what used to be ours because we have become beggars to the rich folks. We possess a demon that our ancestors are ashamed of because we speak in tongues unknown to them. We watch the rich men live off the blood and sweat of our ancestors and all we can do is apply for positions to be maids and janitors.
We are the stem of our society, men of the soil and daughters of the land. We pride ourselves of what no longer belongs to us for we sold it for some cheap man’s cloth and education that still doesn’t benefit us no matter how far we go. We sit surrounded by laminated years of late nights studying with bellies empty like the future that we ought to have. It’s a cycle of discomfort and sadly we blame it all on the colour of our pigment.
How long will we live as beggars of this world, how long will we be reminded that it is we, the indigenous people who are poor and exploited in the land of our birth. So absorbed in another man’s culture because our own lacks popularity, it never stood a chance because you shout and exude a foreign culture because you are ashamed of yours. It’s as though you are under some spell because nothing about your real heritage makes sense to you. It’s either you are alive and proud or you are dead, for when you are dead you will wish you were alive to learn more and accept who you really are.
It is I that turned my back on the land and my roots when it did not serve me. I the rich cousin that made it and now turned my entire back on my tribe. You will fight to get through each and every phase, barricade to get to the top just to find out that your biggest opponent was that of the same skin tone as yours. Until then it’s each one on their own to fend for themselves.
Dear Black Child wake up for tomorrow your great grandchildren will bare witness to the foolery and little to no foundation that you left for them to build on. Wake up before they become a result of your failures. The wars and the crimes don't have to be the same, just because we grew up in poverty does not necessarily mean that's where we all ought to end up, you can change it, we can change it for the next generation.
