You look at me
and see:
Black
African
Evil.

You turn up your nose
and like a pig
you snort…
Or is it a sneer?
Or maybe… just maybe…
as you scurry away like a cockroach
do you wonder what I am?

I am Black
I am African
A child of the continent
you once called dark
The dark which was beauty untamed.
My skin is the colour
of the earth nourishing life
My blood is the colour of the sun as she sets
My hair is a mass of black stringy knots.

I am Black
I am African
My feet are at pair with the earth
And the mountains and the rivers
and the seas and the forests
My ancestors whittled
the world in which you live
Feeding your white ego
with their blood and sweat and yearning
Just as they fed the mosquitoes
of the motherland
With every sting they grew sturdier
And defied extinction

They were Black
They were Africans
I am Black
I am African
We are Black
We are African.

So
Do I offend your sensibility sister?

***

Link to the Italian translation