A Woman Of Colour Poem by Paula Glynn

Deep from Africa, she is a woman of colour,
Her history telling of whites who made them slaves,
And her relatives in America celebrate her,
And celebrate her hardworked for freedom,
Where no white trash dismisses them,
For a woman of colour is taught pride,
And pride doesn't come before a fall:
Just ask those white men with ranches to run,
For a black man's work is never done,
Skin the colour of the darkest night,
A woman drinking in her black husband's sight,
As she sees him having been beaten black and blue,
So severely that it even shows on his black skin,
But that's all he is to the white man:
Black, with no thought of what mind he and the other men have,
But the deep south is hard even on the toughest souls,
The oppression all too evident, all too clear,
For there is heartache and all too real fear,
Yet there are changes in process,
There are people working for these attitudes to be eradicated,
To be changed and stopped, for a little girl of colour,
To see her papa walk the street with his head held high,
Not worried about spitting or filthy looks,
And she will grow into a woman of colour,
The first generation to be freed from slavery,
And to have her children live as free women and men,
And this is the hope and dream of many,
The white man out of the loop,
As his fantasies of dominance are looked down on,
And are no longer accepted or tolerated.

Her skin is the colour of the deepest Africa,
She has heart and soul,
And her ancestry takes hold,
For she is a black queen,
A woman of colour that means the world,
As she sits in her home,
Mending that dress for her little girl,
Who goes to school in the local village,
And has made lots of friends,
For she has been given the beauty gene,
And her mother goes to the market every Saturday,
Buying food and collecting clean water from the well,
For she is a woman of colour and knows her history,
The stories of her ancesters not a mystery,
For they were taken from their shores with a false dream,
And taken control of out of anger and spite,
Many black men and women having to fight,
To live in the country they didn't want to live in in the first place,
Their skin matching stark against the white faces,
That promised so many false dreams: lies that destroyed,
Or tried to destroy, many a good man and woman,
Who won't let the white man bring oppression to the new world,
So she sings a song of the slaves and prays to the lord above,
A man of any colour, a man without greed or judgement,
Because love isn't a colour, love doesn't judge,
Human decency and respect make pride go around,
And pride doesn't come before a fall,
Pride has made the black man succeed,
Where the white man has failed,
With all the destruction, lies and greed,
But Martin Luther King did succeed,
And has brought more equality to African shores,
Memories of that time gone past never forgotten,
As the mother teaches her daughter pride in what she is,
Her beautiful black skin that of a princess,
That is full of elegance, pride, strength and grace,
A truly beautiful woman of colour.