Black child —
born deviant from norms of western culture.
Dispossessed like a refugee in a sea of white
divisiveness where cognitive capabilities
are measured on a colour scale according to
my phenotypic reality.
My Blackness —
marked already by your history.
So much so that you know all about me
before I am even born.
Black child —
thwarted by ingrained white perception.
My life not yet lived, but my existence already
theorized by my Black skin.
Black child —
born already labelled — swimming from
the womb against currents of conformity.
Black cross in white box records
my existence in the nation — statistically
tracked from birth to death
captive of the white square mentality.
My Blackness —
already confined by your colonial chains
redefined by white rhetoric.
Identity already ascribed from above
by a raceless ruling elite.

Read the rest of Overland 239

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