Deep Brown

My soul awoke this morning longing for jokes.

90 minutes with this girl satisfied that need:

For the record, this is my best black GIRL friend.

Apparently it can be offensive to say you only have one good friend who is black when you are sat next to this guy:

Our Skype conversations involve loud high-pitched screaming

Dissecting the world through our brown eyes

Crazing jokes about way back when

Our friendship spanning

Back to doo-doo plaits and

White patent shoes

For pew seats on sabbaths

With some friends we bond over English literature and fashion

With others our faith unites as we collectively seek to go deeper

With Angelene and Luke

our bond goes

Deeper than

Most.

For it is more than

Skin deep.

But yet it is

Defined by skin.

Mummy worked so hard, fought so much

For best area, best schools

Effort that made me

A small group of coloured faces

In a very pale crowd

Not completely fitting in

With middle-class families

and lives unlike my own

school canteen didn’t even cook

rice & peas & chicken

Grandma loved to take me to church

Worship and know His word

Effort that gave me

Sunday school peers with faces

and hair like mine

Yet I didn’t know the same music and people

my words and slang too “proper” for them

pushing against an enclosed circle

my name was not on the list

“coconut”

black on the outside

white on the inside.

The ultimate disgrace.

Fast forward to finding love in the arms of

A pale grammar school boy

Hands holding walking beautifully in step

And told

“oh.

You’re married.

We don’t have many people like that here.”

And shame of husband

mistaken for the boyfriend of

a 17-year-old white girl

because to piece our white and milk chocolate together

in social situations

seems unbelievable.

Interracial makes no sense.

And the untold pain of constantly living,

And breathing and being,

In a place where so few faces look like yours,

And no one seems to get

Why that is such a big deal

Why you feel like you might lose

A part of who you are.

My heart desires a

United Colours of Benetton kinda place

Where we see

the beauty in all parts of the world.

No matter the shade of the sky or of your eyes.

And delight in the food

from fields far flung.

The beauty they’ll be in our mixed-race babies

light cocoa skin

taking a bit from mummy

a bit from dad.

But my heart already breaks

for the moment narrow-mindedness says

“Why is your dad white, but you are black?”

Oh to be in an open space,

open place,

where differences are embraced,

as a chance to learn and

see new things.

See, I love all things in my world of brown

Grandma’s Jamaica dumplings,

my mum’s telephone voice,

the fact my hair costs a small mortgage.

The battle our race fights,

for under-achieving boys,

fathers long gone.

Equality in some ways,

still far behind.

When you say my name and see my face,

This is my story,

These are my people.

Heritage I can’t

and don’t want

To ignore

The beauty I embrace.

Skin-defined

But not just skin deep.