Colour Isolation

Feeling the aftershocks of colonisation

is these days not so much breathing, more suffocation

My identity is broken just like our ancestries,

family lines torn apart into slavery and subjugation

conquered and divided

The roots of my identity are torn with my family tree

Now, I'm watching Roots to trace my broken ancestry

Diaspora driven out by slavery and subjugation

Diaspora derided, their nation conquered and divided

Am I road enough to walk through roads and call these cobbled pavements home?

I wanted to be a Black Gatsby, getting gold before they ask me where I’m from,

code switch tongues while I’m calculating the sum of my answer,

erring between the slang and the proper

White liberals expect me to bang drums and my brethren want me in the same nightmare

cycles of othering internalised

‘till we’re blind to the bigger picture

You get all hyped-up when I step in backwards cap, tracksuit and tongue full of jive

This code-switching keeps the brain busy-buzzing, a hive of brutal thoughts

Still you call me illiterate ‘cos I don’t care what you thought, I speak in different degrees of ABCs

because you parted the seven seas in search of us, for slave labour

(Make it illegal to read, make us hate our Black neighbours

and you wonder why I don't care to lend my ear to Shakespeare, but wanna spit wit, and throw bricks

hear you speak and it stinks waves of bullshit)

Appropriated our culture and in the same breath denounced it

It’s so frustrating when you’re the one who separated

and then baited us with false promises

Then you poison us and tried to sweep it under the rug, no Windrush

So when I say ‘cuz’ don’t hush me

You never even bothered to teach your adopted kids how to survive here,

but we’re going to find a way to if you leave us out to dry

Don’t call me patriotic because I decided to master

what the masters know

Brothers and sisters label me white

because I love to write and make use of my syllabus,

But what we’re shouldering is the same – we’re all riding in the back of this bus

I’m stuck between switching tongues and being myself,

articulate yet still in the bottom societal set

Look what happened when we forgot our Roots and let them tailor labels for us like suits

You all behave like it’s all set in stone

but it’s still set in motion:

Am I still a dirty nigger

or nah, just a shade defined by pound figures?

Fatten me up and sell me to the highest bidder.

Cycles continue when nobody changes:

the policeman who killed me sniggers that I’m a nigger who dreamed of Black Gatsby

But I think his apathy was greater than mine – 

he decided to slack and stay in a bubble because that’s just what has to be done

This Black pawn convinced he cannot move to white spaces

He is trapped in this false colour game

A shame. What did the oppressors see 

when they set shore for Africa:

Motherland

I wonder how’d you feel if you saw the grand disaster we’re in

But then again dis is no unity

It’s one for all

rest can fall

This ball is still motion

But where’s the devotion to Martin’s cause?

We binned it and scrapped it like straws

Words by Tadhg Kwasi