You're Not Black
Author: Amy Saunders
A top 15 winner of the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award 2019.
Contents
Poetry
I sit with them at lunch
Fried chicken on my plate
I eat with a knife and fork
“You’re not black, if you don’t use your hands to eat”
Yet I know that hands tied up the strange fruit on the trees in the south
The fruit for the crows to pluck
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop*
I don’t recognise the Caribbean music, or the Afrobeats
I only know of Liszt, Chopin and Ludovico Einaudi
Whose names you’ve probably never heard
“You’re not black, if you don’t know this beat”
Yet, I am familiar with the beat of pounding
Pounding of sugar cane, the whipping of backs
The cries and screams of my ancestors
Ring loud in my head centuries later
So how dare you? How dare you put me down!
Question my ethnicity, I’m still a shade of brown
And I’m sorry if I don’t live up to your ‘black norms’
But I live in a world with segregated dorms
Society crushes me, tells me I’m ugly
But copies my features, they must think it’s funny
I’m not trying to in any way be mean
But I live in a society covered in white sheen
Sorry to Bother You, but I should Get Out
’Cause The Hate U Give leaves me with no doubt
That I am not The Help, the help that you need
But the Hidden Figures are clear to see
That I should stop trying to be ‘Black’ and just try to be
Me
*from ‘Strange Fruit’ by Abel Meeropol(Amy Saunders)[1]
Summary
In this poem, it is mentioned that there are several stereotypes that are labeled for black people. Although according to the author, the things that are inherent for black people are actually done by white people. In short, the author wants to give the impression that black people and white people are equal.
Racism Issue
Amy Saunders, a top 15 recipient of the 2019 Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award, was just 13 when she wrote You're Not Black, a poem that conveys the internal struggle of becoming a black person who feels like they're looking in from the outside of their society. Amy uses extracts from a song by Billie Holiday named 'Strange Fruit' to question the normalized conceptions of what it means to be black. It was originally written to protest against lynchings in America by Abel Meeropol in 1939. She also makes clever references to famous, thought-provoking racism movies, such as Get Out, The Aid, and Hidden Figures, all of which emotionally touch on the injustice generation after generation faced by people of color.
Reference
- Singh, Chayelene. July 7 2020. 7 Powerful Poems About Injustice & Racial Discrimination. Retrieved January 1 2020.
- Saunders, Amy. You're Not Black. Retrieved January 1 2020.
- ↑ Saunders, Amy. "You're not Black". Poetry Society, https://poems.poetrysociety.org.uk/poems/youre-not-black/. Accessed 1 January 2021.