Colour Me Black
Black child's mother says her ears gave it away
The hint of shame on an otherwise perfect face
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Live Free
Your thoughts and words are of no consequence to me.
I am free.
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,
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Brown Oceans
Do oceans that aren’t
green or blue…
Returning to natural roots
Representing how more black women have been embracing their natural hair…
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.
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.
What Lies Beneath the Skin
My grandfather called my hair was “too niggerish”
When my mother refused lye and hot comb
I told him my brown skin was a blessing
He admonished “Girl!
Watch your tone”
I’m That Girl
You may set a standard for her, but let me
inform you: This girl who stands before you
is more capable than what you or anyone
else thinks, and she can achieve things
higher than the stars and your expectations.
Broken Beyond Repair
A quarter section split in two,
Wide, livid eyes deep in life
Peers into the map of my tragedy.