Member-only story
Why can’t I be your type?
Live up to your stereotypes?
The lashes and bruises they are etched in my mind,
I wish I could stripe them away.
You want me to be active, you passive whatever that means.
I see your profile has categorised and placed me on the shelf,
It sparkles brightly.
The … lie.
Your wish, I define as being selfish: to deny another the pleasure and experience.
Ah, the inane need to conform.
I cannot live up to your expectations.
I seek to exceed the norm.
My mother, my father, my brother, my sisters -
your choice, your life.
I equal individuality.
Not your commodity to sell:
prepackaged and branded by you.
What image should I project?
Well…should I roar like a tiger?
Be a savage fighter?
A baboon, a Coon, a little Pete?
Speak, as if I am from the Ghetto?
Your Tug, your Nigga, Zigga: guess that means gorilla plus nigga, whatever!
Yo bro, this is a place you hardly know.
Be your cartoon character?
What!
To save face: you scolded and ostracise me, pretending to be one of them,
so that you will not fall from grace.
A place you never inhabited in the first place.
Uni boy, my quest for knowledge you mocked.
The same as they do.
An educated black man must be an anathema to you?
