Fazel MayetPoem by Pearl Masemola
What if you knew
What if you knew
That the same red coloured blood flowing through your veins
Courses the same route as mine
What if you knew
That black and white
Were meant to be complimentary
But we turned them into mortal enemies
When, when will we realise that
Beauty is not a shade
But a mind-set
Beauty is not subjective to the melanin in your skin
When did we reduce our identity
To colours in a crayon box
When even they get along better than us
The hate, anger and violence
Only because the skin differs
We have been waged in a war we will never win
We forgot to notice that the world is crumbling all around us
A part of the human spirit died
When brothers and sisters hated what made them special
But in essence their biology runs perfectly parallel
When do derogatory terms get lost
In our vocabulary
When the cat no longer has to catch your tongue
To stop you from spewing venomous hate
When, when do we stop being
Black, white, coloured and Indian
And start being human beings
*Pearl Masemola is member of the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation’s University of Johannesburg society (AKF UJ). She writes in her personal capacity.
Her poem is part of a series of opinion pieces written for Anti-Racism Week (March 14-21). Visit www.arnsa.org.za for more information on the campaign. .
