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To honour and celebrate Black History Month, Rachéyah in Year 11 has written a wonderful poem.

Wrong Name, Same Mistake

What is it to be black?

Is it the darkness that spreads over your skin?

Is it the way you talk? Too loud, too ghetto?

Is it where you’re from?

Are you Somali, Ethiopian or are you Bajan or Jamaican?

Is it the way you look?

Kinky coily hair

Skin pale as ice or dark as black opal.

Is it simple enough to be categorised in the same

miniscule box

as another.

Another ’black’ I mean.

 

One that by the way, you look nothing alike.

But the world will never see Jamila and Naomi as two people.

They are a collective. With collective responsibility. 

They will be judged based on each other’s actions.

They’re grouped together so often people sometimes mistake the two.

Jamila a creamy skinned hijabi girl,

She’s tall and slender.

Her frame is like something made for a runway.

And Naomi, a short stocky girl with obsidian skin and fire in her eyes.

She has braids that trail far down her back,

They reach past her bottom, like a black river.

No matter how much they differ. No matter what.

When they're together, it's like their identities become diluted.

Like they melt into each other.

Like a new reactions to form a new substance.

Not in a good way though.

It’s like they become lost within each other.

Only in others’ eyes. Because they know who they are.

Two. very different people.

Prejudice is so, so much more than what people think.

Your apologies are worthless when you continue to make the same mistakes.

by Rachéyah Ifill-Graham