True Colour

I guess I was too impressionable,

As soon as we could afford it my mum moved me from Central London to the suburbs.

But I'd never learned how to be black,

My childish notion of black being only about the color of my skin was misguided.

The lesson was repeated time and time again from friends who said I was the whitest black person ever

From family members who would hear me speak and say I spoke whitely

From breakups that girls would say 'is because you only like white girls'

Eventually I realized.

I couldn't just be black,

I had to act it.

Apparently to those around me an

intellectual

well-spoken,

unaggressive

young boy is incompatible with the idea of being black.

So I had to learn that,

I'm meant to smoke weed

sell drugs

Get in fights

Intimidate people

Talk slang

Steal your phone

And if that doesn’t prove it then I'm meant to wait outside the school gates for whoever wants beef and beat them till they see black.

If I was 2 felonies deep

Warming up a jail cell

With 3 babymums outside waiting for my child support payments,

No one would argue how black I am.

If I was sitting in a flat crying cos the bills are piling up and I've got no way to pay them except start working for the drug dealer down the road,

No one would argue how black I am.

If I'm gunned down in the streets for resisting arrest with a kitchen knife in one pocket and an ounce in the other,

No one will argue how black I am.

I don't need to learn to be black,

You people just need to learn what black really is!