#ethnicity poems on Hello Poetry

Falese Oladele David Mar 2015

Mr Jonah was sent to Nineveh
He head out but took a detour
Now in the belly of the beast.

Mr Jonah cannot change things overnight
Says his town's men
Who will Carry or move anything
Without power?
Obviously no one, so we need power
They also said;
That's not possible overnight.

Our palm oil is dry
No groundnut oil to fry
Nobody is buying our powerful oil
Yet we have to sell before we boil
If we don't sell something
We will not eat anything.

Our children are misbehaving
Is this the future we are saving?
Will Mr Jonah build a place
Full of tutors?
Well,that's not possible overnight

Cows everywhere
Is there no one to check these cows?
Mr check cow is busy
Burning our farms and farmers
Mr Jonah cannot stop Mr check cow
Not overnight.

365 days make a year
How many years make an overnight?
The writer coughs;
6 years makes one night.

Wait o, is 6years overnight?

#thoughts #politics #africa #satire #nigeria #ethnicity #rhetorics

Kelsie Cameron Feb 2015

Power

I am not a true minority.
I am white woman.
I believe in feminism because that is what I experience.
But what about what I don't experience?
It pains me to have a power and to not know what to do with it.
Race is still an issue.
I hear these words all the time, but do I really hear them?
There are people out there who want to be married and they can't. I sit on my social media and say what should be said.
Sometimes.
Is that enough?
I have the power.
So why am I wasting it?

#power #race #feminism #lgbt #ethnicity

K Y Dec 2014

The Minority's Burden

Listen to the minority’s burden
There are more than you may see
Your idea of equality
Is quite different from what I believe
The facts are alive and well
And terribly ignored
By many common folk who can not tell
What all we’ve been fighting for
Listen to our burdens
They’ve been here all along
Since the pale folks came for us
And decided they knew where we belong
Listen to my burden
I am more than my ethnicity
But no one pays attention to my character
Thank you, oh dear society
I’m not here to do your math homework
Or be the punch line of your joke
Or be the one who is categorized
As a yellow, squinty-eyed bloke
We have countless burdens
So listen to what we say
Please stop your patterns of racist jokes and ignorance
And realize that change must begin today

#change #race #burden #ethnicity

Pilot Sep 2014

Please See Me

Please see me.

Not the person I appear to be.
Not the one you see walking isles,
The one who grins, who looks at you with those doggy eyes
Who apologizes, who cowers.

Please see me.

Not my skin. Not my hair.
Please don't call me something I'm not.
Please understand that I love your people
But I come from somewhere else.

Please understand me.

As I have come to understand you,
This place, these people,
These ways and the talk.
Please try, as I have tried countless times before.

#life #personal #nationality #identity #ethnicity

Claire Aug 2014

Sleeping with you

The way your body hugs mine
You sleep and you insist on holding me to your chest
The way you love me
I have never been so important to someone.
He is my Scotsman
I am his Spanish cortisone.
He loves me.
I love him.
I can't believe I'm so lucky
To find someone as special as you.

#love #ethnicity

Soumia May 2014

I am a Person of Colour

I am a person of colour

Whose simple presence can cause outrage
they use their tongues as swords
and slay me with slurs
Whilst there are others who pretend to be my ally
but I can see their disgust in their eyes
their uneasiness in their smile

I am a person of colour

Whose beautiful traditional garments are cherry-picked
and woven into a disgusting replica
brandished on “Designer labels”
and mocked as exotic

I am a person of colour

Whose skin is secretly envied by them
they exhaust their expenses on tanning salons
and “bronzing” creams
Yet simultaneously they spit on my “darkness”
and promote their products with the so-called beauty of “lightness”

I am a person of colour**

I shall not hide my anger at their ignorance
I shall wear my skin with pride
Because being a person of colour
No matter what I do or how I conform
They will never be satisfied

#of #race #person #colour #culture #identity #racism #appropriation #poc #ethnicity

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