racism (Remove filter)
The Danger of All The Isms...
In these challenging times, this limerick tries to capture the destructive force of all the "isms"—racism, antisemitism, extremism and others—shaping a world where security and peace seem ever more distant. By highlighting the deep-rooted nature of these hatreds, it emphasises how they threaten our safety and undermine the unity we desperately need. A call to action against intolerance, this piece...
Monday 11th November 2024 12:07 pm
Impure
The dirty waters of nationalism
Are flowing freely nowadays
A narrow-minded bigotry
Pervades the racist's ways.
The filthy pools of fascism
Rippling steadily outward
Craving invented purity
The racist feels empowered.
Monday 29th January 2024 2:21 pm
Where Do You Come From?
Taking my first girlfriend
to the pub at seventeen
Crossing the cobbles
of a gunmetal grey
northern market town
Mitten in glove
warm in our teenage
prototype version of love
A chatterbox pint for me
a tipsy glass of white for her
and we’d find a quiet corner
Invariably, some red-faced
shaven-headed native
furtively eyes my companion
“Where do you come from?”
they’d splutter in th...
Tuesday 19th December 2023 3:07 pm
Manifesto of Hope (with quote, not paraphrase)
Rise, like lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number!
Shake your chains to earth, like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you:
Ye are many—they are few!
(From the Masque of Anarchy by Percy Bysshe Shelley)
Below is what I consider to be a Manifesto of Hope, to whose motives and principles I wholly subscribe.
Public ownership of all public services and infrastructure, including ...
Friday 6th October 2023 10:10 am
DISEASE BREEDS DISEASE
DISEASE BREEDS DISEASE
_____________________
Strange new ailment
Giving pneumonia-like symptoms
Has a ripple effect
Spanning our globe.
Floating on the wind, harm to health,
Diaspora of microbes--
Point of outbreak:
Wuhan, China.
Within a month, fate's transmission
Country by country. Bad news travels fast.
Reported cases of Coronavirus
Breeds ...
Tuesday 20th September 2022 5:14 pm
Hate Is A Virus
Where the oppressed are kept under white supremacists systematic control,
And an 89-year old woman is set alight, whilst taking a daytime stroll.
The hate crimes on the Asian community is rapidly rising in toll.
We must fight against xenophobia until this racist infrastructure folds.
If only people were judged by their true likeness, painted by their souls.
...
Wednesday 24th February 2021 12:05 pm
Message to a racist
A ferocious sea of red, white and blue
Sieg heils and swastikas, Doc Marten boots
Shaven heads, braces and distorted faces
Driven by fear and irrational hatred
You think you're superior, sophisticated
The master race, ha! But your views are outdated
With your big fat round belly and your face like a pig
Your snarled lips as you yelled and you screamed and you hissed
At me, commie bitch, n*...
Friday 23rd October 2020 8:37 pm
ANTHONY WALKER
Blessed mother so blessed
To raise a boy so kind so giving
To practice forgiveness always forgiving
Blessed mother we thank you for the blessing you brought us
Praiseworthy son the message he taught us
Rare teenage boy with morals unique
Praiseworthy words Her boy he would speak
He still lives Blessed Mother..His greatness so strong
His Praiseworthy message through God's gentle song
Sacre...
Tuesday 22nd September 2020 9:45 am
Angry
I am angry.
I am angry at men, and women
and children and mothers and fathers.
my body is full of unbridled rage, that the ones
I love and care about, sometimes even myself,
can turn a blind eye to the atrocities right in front of us.
Children ripped from their mothers
Young people blinded and beaten for speaking the truth
Men spewing bile, cruelty, poison to hide the
depths of their...
Monday 20th July 2020 2:14 pm
Hands Up, On Your Knees
Hands up
On your knees
It’s not an instruction
It’s a threat
Because your skin
Your hands
Your hoodie
Are a weapon
So you drop
You drop like Trayvon’s skittles
You drop like Tamir’s BB pellets
You drop like Michael’s cigars
Or you drop dead.
Each breath could be your last
Breathe breathe breathe
I can’t breathe
Please, please, I can’t breath...
Wednesday 10th June 2020 1:09 am
Faith
In a world that is broken and full of crime and hate
There are people who still have faith
Faith that can move mountains and make things well
There are people who believe with all their heart that things can heal
They believe that with faith anything and everything is possible
Through pain, death, and brokeness we must always remember to have a little bit of FAITH
Let God take th...
Monday 1st June 2020 7:27 pm
Small town girl
Small town girl with your voice so low
and your hopes even lower,
you keep on singing just the wrong verse.
Why is it that you never care?
You keep on counting only on false friends.
Why is it that your heart 's so bare?
Small town girl with your history so long
and a record even longer,
huddled in your hoodie.
What is it that you won't see?
With your right arm s...
Tuesday 15th October 2019 2:24 pm
Hate on Tap
Hate on Tap
LOCK HER UP!
BUILD THE WALL!
SEND HER BACK!
Three-word chant
Three-word chant
Three-word chant
Rouse the mob!
Rouse the mob!
Rouse the mob!
Hate on tap
Hate on tap
Hate on tap
Sexist Trump
Racist Trump
Mister Trump:
No more of that
https://news.sky.com/story/send-her-back-trump-fires-up-crowd-...
Thursday 18th July 2019 4:29 pm
Mr Robinson
No time for you, Mr. Robinson
Jesus loves you less than you would know
Woe woe woe
God help me please, Mr. Robinson
Heaven holds no place for those who hate
Hate Hate Hate, Hate Hate Hate
Here you are in Manchester spouting your pathetic shite
We'd like to help you learn to f*%# yourself
Look around you all you see are unsympathetic eyes
Stroll around our town but w...
Friday 3rd May 2019 12:20 am
Walk on part
He was a bit-part actor, he never dreamt of commanding his stage
He signed on as a walk-on character, a cameo role in a one-off play,
Each night he learnt his lines, the same words he would speak every day
Rehearsing his part word-perfect, in the hope that his public would pay
No one spelled out his name in neon, the only stars he knew were in the night sky
His costume was neve...
Wednesday 10th April 2019 8:43 pm
Tribute
I wrote this two years ago, long before the Windrush scandal hit the headlines.
When them set sail on Empire Windrush
Them leave behind sun, sea and sand
Yes, them set forth upon Windrush,
Them a tropical collection of hands,
When all them set foot on Windrush;
Next stop, the promised Motherland
So, them all on board Empire Windrush
All four hundred and ninety-two...
Wednesday 10th April 2019 8:32 pm
Shame
SHAME
In a warehouse, in a cage a child sits
In bits
Clinging to her only comfort a blanket of foil
And whilst we all recoil
at the horror on display
Theresa May declares although it’s not ok
She will wait and chat in her special friend’s ear.... only when he is here
Whilst umbilical cords of family ties
Are severed bleeding out amid cries ..............................
Tuesday 3rd July 2018 12:03 pm
Half-Asleep
Half-Asleep
The street light casts a shadow on the bedroom wall through
partly opened curtains and for a moment I see Adolf Hitler
in silhouette and I know it’s my imagination but the truth is, hate
in an orange face scares me.
Monday 25th June 2018 9:21 am
Glory
Spic, wetback, beaner,
Border rat, pepper-belly, orange picker,
Names commonplace now
For Latinos and Hispanics,
Names,
Used to break,
Used to hurt,
Used to kill,
The orators:
Ignorance, Malice, Contempt
But most importantly
Fear.
Fear of what is different,
Fear of what is great,
Fear of what has always been great,
For the sun shone for centuries
On ...
Tuesday 3rd April 2018 3:56 am
Intolerants not welcome
Intolerants not welcome - The battle of Lewisham 13.08.1977
An anti muggers march, called by mugs who wanted to spread hate
August thirteenth in ’seventy seven, history demands we mark the date
when South East London screamed out for black and white to unite and fight,
ensuring wronguns on right would never again be so bold or bright.
The backward Front was in for one...
Thursday 10th August 2017 7:04 am
A Call To Peace
Let's unite in peace and make a plan:
a wily plan of mutual respect
to counteract the hatred in this man.
Let's do everything he won't expect!
We won't let goads and bigotry divide us
- let's evoke what World War II has taught us.
Don't let's patronise - let women guide us
when he slights our mothers, sisters, daughters.
And when he flays the vulnerable with derision
let's answer bac...
Friday 3rd February 2017 3:36 pm
Xenophobe
Xenophobe
centuries turn
witches burn
mantra
monsters
under the bed
home is where
the heart is
not like me
me not like
trolls
under bridges
bogeyman
is gonna get ya
spreading
like a virus
mantra
monsters
in my head
trolls
in the darkness
bogeyman
is gonna get ya
home is where
the hurt is
attacking
healthy
white c...
Thursday 2nd June 2016 12:47 pm
Inequalities of all shades(revised)
Though in dexterity my physically challenged carpenter father,
Than the physically fit proves better,as a source to his anger,
With contemporaries a level ground he enjoyed never!
From late childhood there was one thing that me used to bother, why my so discriminated father
On his turn true to cultural dictates,ill treats my domestic chores saddled mother
And heeds not her s...
Monday 8th February 2016 8:43 am
21st c. enlightenment blues
Rattling through the low hills
in the darkness and the endless endless rain
the train is overcrowded
because the train is overcrowded
because the train is always overcrowded
and the conductor’s now a manager
a voice we never see
mumbling something through the tannoy
about weather and delays.
We used to have seats
now we stand
and this is progress.
Outside
the airwaves are full bey...
Monday 16th November 2015 5:37 pm
KU KLUX KLAN
Ku Klux Klan says
"Brotherhood of Man"
as long as you're white
it's alright.
Brothers in arms
with crosses to bear
burn in hell
for all we care.
barbecued brothers
black as night.
Ironic that
but it's alright.
Monday 24th August 2015 8:35 pm
Not White To Weft (early poem for public art sculpture in Oldham)
Lay flat and spun together you’ve always run a town,
each part is party to the next and grown
separately we conflict and seethe from
it and sneer from it, no one is happy in slavery
wouldn’t talking be a step, food too and
work unites us, it’s not them making us toil
we all carry the can and mustn’t
need to chase our own tale to cause blame
each ti...
Thursday 30th July 2015 3:23 pm
Animals
The Fury
Pitiful the morsels for the feeding of the rats,
Dished out unemotionally by vicious little cats,
Like vermin, out the rats they come and scurry back to hide,
Whilst all the while the fat cats feast voraciously outside.
The Persecuted
In the darkest corners of the high walled city streets,
The rank and rotten souls of human waste claw to compete,
Shuffling through th...
Friday 10th May 2013 4:17 pm
One Of Us - A Stephen Lawrence Tribute
Twenty years ago,
he is waiting for a bus,
'Cos twenty years ago
he is simply one of us.
But just twenty years ago,
he comes under attack,
Just 'cos twenty years ago,
this teenager is black.
Twenty years ago,
he runs for his life,
'Cos twenty years ago,
racists stick him with a knife.
Twenty years ago,
this firework is far too fleeting,
And so twenty ...
Monday 22nd April 2013 10:36 pm
Humanity Lost
And fall to my knees.
The earth is cold tonight, my sight
Is sorrowed as I place my hands on its frozen surface,
No furnace to warm me, but bereft.
Here, on the borrowed hour
Of my death.
The frost seeping through my clothes
Chills my bones, I am lost here, alone.
The precipice in front of me is wide, and deep,
But full. I keep my head dipped,
Knowing they wat...
Thursday 21st March 2013 9:59 pm
The Scratchers and the Scrawlers
The Scratchers and the Scrawlers
We shall not forget
Signs scrawled by Neanderthals on almost every wall we walked past.
An N, in capital form with two lines added, which digressed to suggest a capital F.
It was scratched into a table
It was scratched into many a table
It was scratched into too many a table often by near illiterate authors who wanted to blame...
Saturday 22nd January 2011 10:59 am
"Just a Boy" - Toyosi Shittabey Memorial Poem
This is the kind of poem a poet wishes that they did not have to write... this is the kind of poem that gives a poet the reason to write, its why God gave us the ability to write.
A Nigerian immigrant was murdered on the streets of Dublin, Ireland on Good Friday last. This poem is my reaction to the tragedy...
...
Tuesday 6th April 2010 5:00 pm
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