Passion 11/1/20 Passion 11/1/20

Colour Me Black

Black child's mother says her ears gave it away

The hint of shame on an otherwise perfect face

Rhonda Williams aka Indira Wills 10/31/20 Rhonda Williams aka Indira Wills 10/31/20

Good Hair

Good Hair speaks to the upliftment and love for all women of colour. The influence of colourism and hair type bias has been an ugly remnant of a social conditioning adopted from slavery that is still very much alive and well today.

Barbara Arrindell 10/30/20 Barbara Arrindell 10/30/20

Belonging To Barbuda

Sally: You bring me here to ask foolish questions like that? You think anybody take time to tell enslaved people when and where they born? Many of us didn’t even know who bring us into this world, but not my children. I made sure that they grew up with me and that they knew their father.

Majella Mark 10/30/20 Majella Mark 10/30/20

The hostility between Afro and Indo Caribbean Women may be about Featurism not Colourism

The Caribbean has a long history of multiculturalism due to the migration that occurred voluntarily and by force. This history includes the division of Afro Caribbean and Indo Caribbean people, predominantly in Guyana, Jamaica, Grenada and Trinidad & Tobago. The same system that was held in the United States, separating house slaves from field slaves based on their shade of brown was also implemented in the Caribbean between the Indians and the Africans.

Neisha Etienne 10/30/20 Neisha Etienne 10/30/20

Tout Pour Plaire

J’ai été conditionné à être un objet.

Il fallait à tout prix appartenir à quelqu’un. Mon

quotidien consistait à faire le beau, en espérant qu’on

me remarque et qu’on me choisisse.

Shannon Meade 10/30/20 Shannon Meade 10/30/20

my old foe

you make me a foreigner in my own country

where disbelieving citizens welcome me with open arms

because they think I bring tourism dollars.

you rear your sinister head every time i return

and make me wonder if this is why i left.

Carl Augustus 10/30/20 Carl Augustus 10/30/20

Live Free

Your thoughts and words are of no consequence to me.

I am free.

MX Leo 10/30/20 MX Leo 10/30/20

Blue Dream (I am just a descendant)

Inna mi dream -

a blue dream,

where we

trod through tanks of indigo

years upon years

with paddles,

hands wrinkled

bodies being burnt,

like your tar babies,

Kelia/Kelie 10/30/20 Kelia/Kelie 10/30/20

I am that little Black Girl

I can also vividly remember being told by somebody I loved that I was beautiful for a black girl. I can honestly say that I did not fully understand the implications of this comment. I now understand.

Jourdan "Riv-Ryker" Lobban 10/30/20 Jourdan "Riv-Ryker" Lobban 10/30/20

Don't Marry Us. Instead, Stand By Us.

The worst part of it all, is that there are deep roots of trauma still plaguing our families yet the outsiders only care about the resorts, the plantain, or the reggae that is overplayed on certain radio stations.

Pietra Brown 10/30/20 Pietra Brown 10/30/20

Invisible Scars

Here she was, head laid, in the lap of the boy who was her rising sun, the peas to her rice. A tender moment spoiled by a bigoted anecdote.

Janielle Browne 10/30/20 Janielle Browne 10/30/20

THE WHITE ROOM

Everything was completely white. I was the only object of colour but for once that excited me. I shut the door behind me and began to look around. There really wasn’t much to see, two white leather couches, white Persian rug, white statue of some naked man. It was boring, but new all the same.

Child Natale 10/30/20 Child Natale 10/30/20

Sensory Adaptation

Colonialism never done, only adapted; they changed its mask. We see our leaders are nothing but puppets to the same masters. Spitting in our faces progressive rhetorics while doing their master's bid.

Amelia Badri 10/29/20 Amelia Badri 10/29/20

Brown Oceans

Do oceans that aren’t

green or blue…

Jamal Joseph 10/29/20 Jamal Joseph 10/29/20

Returning to natural roots

Representing how more black women have been embracing their natural hair…

Princess O'Nika Auguste 10/29/20 Princess O'Nika Auguste 10/29/20

Colourism and Good Hair

My partner was a beautiful Muslim woman, and I realized I was jealous of her. Why? Because even though I had never seen her hair under her hijab, I was sure that she must have good hair, not hard hair like I had been cursed with, but the good hair that everyone coveted.

Annetta Jackson 10/29/20 Annetta Jackson 10/29/20

Unlearning anti-Blackness

It was only after my hair started to grow into its own, after my hair started to gain length that the attitude they had changed. It went from “yuh good hair yuh cut off” to “you get your hair from me; you know Guyanese hair does grow long and nice”. Recently an aunt said in conversation that Black hair can only grow long if you’re mixed with something... I didn’t feel comfortable hearing that.