The Foreign Me!

My great grandfather was a Slave

My grandfather was a Native

My grandmother was a Bantu

My mother was a kaffir, Nigga, Negro

Names imposed by shackles

But an Afrakan I am

An identity my forefathers were deprived of

An identity I am now polluting with the fumes of cigarettes

In dope I am giving it another face

In ecstasy I am giving it a comical image

My drunken stupor gives it an unstable belonging

My borrowed accent contradicts what it represents

My imitated dress code conceals its beauty

My adopted religion undermines my intellectual prowess

My language deafens my ancestors

My values are valueless

My mind is discriminatory

It repels anything indigenous

Whilst absorbing all that is alien

None can identify with me

Even those I am emulating

Patriotism I reserve for my kind

I look down at my patriots

If I were xenophobic

I could have been my own victim

I pride myself in my slanted inferior education

An education promptly deleting my true history

Ignorance is my custom

I am dreaming dreams my forefathers cannot interpret

I am singing praise songs for my dying culture

I am branding a heritage

I cannot inherit

Knowledge of freedom is embedded in my subconscious

But suppressed by fear

Fear to develop my culture and identity

Fear to be rejected by the world

Fear to be different and still love myself

Yet with no identity I remain