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  • Writer's pictureOtema Y

Brown skin, Black hair


1528448341973

When we rode in our father’s car we’d ask him questions.

“Daddy why didn’t you give us English names?”

He’d say he didn’t want to.

He named us after our great grandfather and great grandmother.

He’d linked us to our ancestors,

So we never forgot.

They could speak to us without us knowing.

When the others mocked us for our kinky hair and we cried,

The spirits of our ancestors calmed our hearts.

When the others tried to mock and mimic our accents,

Our ancestors reminded us of our roots.

We were not like the others

We were not from where they were from.

But we still didn’t understand,

because we hadn’t been where they said we came from.

“But you and Mommy have English names”, we’d say.

We weren’t aware of where Mommy and Daddy had come from.

They were ‘gifted’ with these names.

Whoever gave it to them didn’t make it much of a choice.

Daddy had dropped that name.

We thought that was okay because to us it sounded archaic anyway.

We didn’t think he could have any other reason.

We were more interested in the cool & modern English names.

Daddy bought for me a black doll.

She was small & broad with brown hair and light brown skin.

It was the only black doll I had.

She became my favorite for a while,

Till more white slim white dolls with blonde hair filled her space.

I didn’t think much of it.

I didn’t understand the big deal of owning a black doll which looked like me.

Till I saw girls straighten their hair because it didn’t look like Barbie

Till I saw girls struggle to be light skinned because their dark skins were nothing like Barbies’

We’d tell Mommy and Daddy,

of the new English names we had thought of.

And how we’d change it when we grew older and had control to.

But Mommy and Daddy,

they’d not say much

They’d just listen,

And hope our ancestors whispered to us,

One more time.

(Listening to Nina Simone)

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