White comedy

I waz whitemailed
By a white witch,
Wid white magic
An white lies,
Branded by a white sheep
I slaved as a whitesmith
Near a white spot
Where I suffered whitewater fever.
Whitelisted as a whiteleg
I waz in de white book
As a master of white art,
It waz like white death.
People called me white jack
Some hailed me as a white wog,
So I joined de white watch
Trained as a white guard
Lived off the white economy.
Caught and beaten by de whiteshirts
I waz condemned to a white mass,
Don't worry,
I shall be writing to de Black House.

A bit shocking, isn’t it? This must be the work of a black man you may be thinking. And you are right! This poem was written by the poet and novelist Benjamin Zephaniah. He was born in Birmingham (England) but he is a British Jamaican Rastafarian who has proved to be an advocate of racial equality.
In this poem what he is showing us is the negative connotation the colour black, which is the colour of his skin, has in our society. He substituted the word “black”, which is part of the construction of so many words with negative denotation, by the word “white”. In this way he makes us aware to what an extent we associate black to evil, impurity and dirt and white to goodness, purity and cleanliness.
It is something to reflect upon. Don’t you think so? So many times we may find ourselves fighting for racial equality without realizing that the language we are actually speaking can be far from tolerant.