black bodies build building buildings living far away, peanuts pay, people say be at home by midnight, you never know who might come you way in the dark of night, maybe your maid or your gardener with a bloody knife, even during the day some people say its not safe, but
what we dream of
“’Look, a Negro!’ It was an external stimulus that flicked over me as I passed by. I made a tight smile. ‘Look, a Negro!’ It was true. It amused me. ‘Look, a Negro!’ The circle was drawing a bit tighter. I made no secret of my amusement.” This is how the renowned postcolonial writer Frantz Fanon describes the moment of his self- alienation as a black man in Black Skin, White Masks. His personal space, the ‘circle’ of his skin even, is invaded. Suddenly, he begins to think of his blackness as something frightening or different. (quoted in Kaplan 1997:316, 326).
forget it
east of Edenvale
the suburb long for that mist fine grey arousing sweat of the earth life of real life damp-out the suburb walls and the adults erase me in rain I will seep (from my middle-class longing) out of the suburbs into the mud I will be fluid fluid like me before my breath on the highway fades, become another small white wall in the suburb still I long innards churning dull like pidgeon-song dumb like dog shit naked in the backyard scared of the neighbours rain erase me in rain
more poems
realists not racists they say, look at the statistics, crime pays, what do you know anyway, what happens outside home at day, how does it feel being kept at bay, realists racists racism is real
research article
White people the world over unconsciously believe that that only others are ‘colored’ and therefore ‘less’ or ‘different’ ”. To white people, being white and behaving in ‘white’ ways, is entirely invisible. White people think of themselves as ‘normal’, and therefore do not realize how they discriminate against others by labeling them abnormal by their omission.
step up to the till you're addicted to the cost of living up at six, bus at seven, until one, one fifteen back to work. overtime from five to ten pm, eleven even as arranged to your craving. did I say you were slaving? don't you listen you'll be angry you'll be late for work. on sunday they will tap the till, darling, as your footsteps tripple through the mall laden with sales, last year's prices, surveillance devices and other cheap thrills Congratulations! you have stocked and exchanged time for money money for time as arranged to your craving. did you think you were you saving all that money for a war? either way: you amount to nothing much go add it up in invisible ink free choice for small change day after day you're being billed for other people's lives