Colour Me Black
Art by L.E.M, Intersect Antigua
'Tar baby'
'Bun bun bake'
'Stay out the sun girl
Yuh black enough already'
Black child born to women whose skin
the colour of carmel and honey,
Black child's skin as night time as her father's
Black child's mother says her ears gave it away
The hint of shame on an otherwise perfect face
Black child told to rub her dark away,
Scrub the dirt away,
Pretty is just a skin tone lighter away
Black child told she is the splitting image of her father
She smiles before she knows the part of his image they are referring to
Black child grows into black girl
Black girl told she mixed with black and negro
Skin too dark,
Her hair too hard
Black girl's childhood crush says 'I don't date dark girls'
Black girl is reminded every day her skin makes her less worthy,
Makes her laughingstock to her own people
'Lights out where did she go'
I've disappeared within myself a million times
Hiding from a scorn that keeps following me
This skin I live in
It births a war within me
In a place where white is still the epitome of beauty
My own people turn on me
They resent the way this skin reminds them of hot sun and slavery
Of sugarcane and bodies burning in molasses
Of broken backs and stolen names
Of forgotten gods and our ancestors drums
This melaninated covering
As black as resistance
This skin is homage to the fields where Cuffy
and Damon rose and fought and died for freedom,
And they hate the way it reminds them of the chains we still wear
Of the collars still wrapped around our throats
Of the hold white powers still have on our souls
I feel the way they look at me
Their stereotypes of who I am
crucify me before I even speak
I see the way they refuse to see me
Like white men raping our bloodline is better
than the blackness that created me,
Like the red woman genes should have
been passed down to me
Like some how having house negro access
makes the oppression easier to swallow
Or the way they make ghosts out black girls easier to forget
Or the blood of black boys still dying
today easier to wash away
But the only thing light skin privilege buys
you is a longer leash than my own
Black girl grows into black woman
Black woman is covered in so many scars,
Healing from so many wounds
Self hate so deep the roots may never be found
Black woman watches another man she loves turn her down
for a woman with skin the colour of gingerbeer and
hair the loose texture of opened doors and acceptance
As if to say this black skin is struggle
A prisoner in your own body
Doing a life sentence you
spend your whole life fighting
Trying to break into spaces that still don't want you there
Being locked out rooms and left out of
conversations that concern you
Black woman hears her friend say he doesn't
want a child with skin as dark as his ebony body
This is trauma so deep seated
passed down like Granny's favorite china,
Like a generational curse meted out by people that look just like you,
That you'd do anything you could to give
your offsprings a lighter chance in life than you
This is an ugly representation of how an entire people were
taught to hate themselves so completely we do the
work of keeping ourselves divided now
They no longer have to do it for us
They say the darker the berry the sweeter the juice
They never tell you that nobody likes dark fruits