Stories You'Ve Been Told. Poem by Inam Sinelizwi Manyala

...stories you've been told got you thinking being dark skinned is ugly, now you bleaching, trying to lighten up your skin tone.
stories you've been told turned you a religion freak, thinking your culture is wrong.

...I've been told being black is being blinded by the darkness of my past, being black is the writings of all my ancestors who fought the oppressor. Now they’re sending out all the messages in the form of my skin.

...stories you've been told paints you inferior so you own poverty, and think the Ghetto is rightfully a black zone.
I've been told that my fore-fathers are the owners of this land that bears gold.

...stories you've been told got you feeling like a misfit in your own home, trying to fit in to alien norms.
I've been told they came from the West, East, South and some from the North, all to play Bosses in my fore-fathers' home.