Racial Discrimination in You’re not Black (2019) and Today I am a Witness To Change

(2021): A Postcolonial Comparative Study

Anindya Diqza Syafiiqa | 227221010

[email protected]

I. Background of the Study

A motif is a literary device in which an element is used repeatedly because of the

symbolic meaning it has inside a text. A motif may take the form of a recurrent image.

Sometimes it's a recurring idea or theme in a piece of writing. A theme might be something that

occurs repeatedly. Within this writing, I would like to compare two different poems which I

believe, during my analysis, consists of certain motifs signifying the same meaning. The first

poem is You’re not Black, You’re not Black is a poem written by a 13-year-old black girl Amy

Saunders about her internal struggles of being black. The poem challenges the normalized idea of

what it is like to be black. The second poem is Today I am a Witness To Change. It is a poem

written in protest of the Asian American hate during the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak. This poem

is a crowdsourced poem written by Asian-Americans from different states in the United States.

The two poems You’re not Black (2019) and Today I am a Witness To Change (2021)

depict the existence of racial discrimination in society. Racial discrimination is any

discrimination against any individual on the basis of their skin color, or racial or ethnic origin.

Racial discrimination can be in form of stereotyping, prejudice and bias. Individuals can

discriminate by refusing to do business with, socialize with, or share resources with people of a
certain group (Dayal 2018, 249). Style of language is a literary aspect that explains the way in

which the author uses words. This includes choice of words, sentence structure, figurative

language, and arrangement of sentences altogether for the purpose of creating mood, images and

meaning in the text. The first poem You’re not Black (2019) is about a black girl who feels like

her culture is boxed to a few values that others feel like she needs to uphold but she does not

want to. Within this text, I would like to answer the following research question: What motifs are

shown in You’re not Black (2019) and Today I am a Witness To Change (2021)?

II. Results and Discussion

“I eat with a knife and fork“You’re not black, if you don’t use your hands to eat””

(Stanza 1, line 3-4)

“You’re not black, if you don’t know this beat” (Stanza 2, line 4)

It is as if people who are black are only allowed to use hands to eat. And as if black

people have to listen to a certain genre of songs for them to be able to be called black. She also

tries to tell the reader that she acts the way she acts because all her ancestors had been living

with discrimination for many years. Therefore, she writes:

“Yet, I am familiar with the beat of pounding

Pounding of sugar cane, the whipping of backs

The cries and screams of my ancestors

Ring loud in my head centuries later” (Stanza 2, line 5 – 8)

She says that she is surrounded by ‘white sheen’ and feels sorry if she does not live up to

the ‘black norms.’ Like she is “supposed to”, so instead of showing hate towards her culture, she
actually shows hate towards the idea of “black and white segregation” that creates the

discrimination itself.

“And I’m sorry if I don’t live up to your ‘black norms’

But I live in a world with segregated dorms

Society crushes me, tells me I’m ugly

But copies my features, they must think it’s funny” (Stanza 3, line 3-6).

“I’m not trying to in any way be mean

But I live in a society covered in white sheen” (Stanza 3, line 7-8).

Saunders also takes a reference while writing the poem, in the first stanza she quoted one

very powerful poem about racism towards black people by white people. The poem was titled

Strange Fruit (1939).

“Yet I know that hands tied up the strange fruit on the trees in the south

The fruit for the crows to pluck

For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck

For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop” (Stanza 1, line 5-8)

These lines are written below where she writes;

“I eat with a knife and fork

“You’re not black, if you don’t use your hands to eat” (Stanza 1, line 3-4)

This is to emphasize the hate towards the racism experienced by her, and her ancestors.

Strange fruit refers to the “black bodies” in exchange to fruits hanging on trees, that is why it is

called “strange fruit”. The lines she uses also mean that back then, black people are left on the

trees rotten for days in purpose for people to see and take them as warnings and that is very

inhuman.
In comparison to You’re not Black (2019), Today, I Am a Witness To Change (2021) is a

crowdsourced poem written in protest about racism struggle experienced by Asian-Americans

during the covid-19 pandemic outbreak. The Stop AAPI Hate advocacy organization claimed last

year it received over 2 800 complaints of hate acts that were directed state wide to Asian

Americans and Pacific Islanders (BBC News). Line 1-4 explains how Asian Americans are tired

of the ignorance about racism around them. “Soft grey hues, contrasting over a grieving

landscape” is a metaphor for sadness for gray is a gloomy, moody, and sorrowful color.

“An Asian-American died because of hate.

a child lost his mother.

Today we mourn

I cry and pray for the world.

I want the attacks to be called what they are: Terrorism.” (Stanza 3, line 1-5)

Racial discrimination in this second poem is also depicted from these lines, where the writers

feel that the Asian culture is discriminated because they are doing things that “do not fit” the

white culture.

“The young woman in Alum Creek

Who was with her boyfriend

who Threw a stone at me

Because I was doing my Tai Chi” (Stanza 6, 1-4)

Or feeling unsafe within their neighborhood of being racially different;

“Today I hesitate

for the first time, I wonder if I should stay home and not walk the neighborhood.

it's not the weather or the virus — the day is beautiful

I'm frozen

Terrified.

I cannot hide

This skin

This hair

These eyes.

I see the punch, punch, punch of a community at war.

Today I am a witness.

I rush past the jeering white boys that say I brought corona to America.

My soul is wary.” (Stanza 5, line 1-14)

The style of language in Today I am a Witness To Change (2021) is different to You’re not

Black (2019) in many aspects. In terms of figurative language for instance, Saunders uses more

imageries and requires more in-depth interpretations. Some people might know who Liszt,

Chopin and Ludovico Einaudi are, and some people might not. Some people might know why

she quotes Strange Fruit (1939) and the story behinds it and some people do not. Whilst Today I

am a Witness To Change (2021) is a poem directed to racists in a protest activity voiced by more

than one person. The poem needs to be direct for the message needs to be delivered directly and

just try to be "me"". She finds the world as always to be in segregated dorms, hence the hybridity

is a way out from discrimination. In the second poem, hybridity is shown in languages, Asians’

first language is not English.

“Today I remember the idea

of America
 as a melting pot

the past twelve years

looking over my shoulder

watching my back” (Stanza 11, line 1-6)

Therefore, in conclusion, in a comparative sense, the similarity of the two poems is both poems

depict the concept of hybridity in the poems. In contract, the first poem depicts racial hybridity

whilst the second one depicts linguistic hybridity.

REFERENCES

Cabral, Sam. n.d. “Covid ‘hate Crimes’ against Asian Americans on Rise - BBC News.”
Accessed July 11, 2021. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56218684.

Corfman, Allisa. "Strange Fruit by Abel Meeropol", Poem Analysis, 12 May 2021,
https://poemanalysis.com/abel-meeropol/strange-fruit/.

“Examples of Racial Discrimination (Fact Sheet) | Ontario Human Rights Commission.” n.d.
Accessed July 11, 2021. http://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/examples-racial-discrimination-fact-sheet.

Martin, Rachel. 2021. “‘Today, I Am A Witness To Change’: A Crowdsourced Poem Against

Saunders, Amy. 2019. “You’re Not Black – The Poetry Society: Poems.” 2019.
https://poems.poetrysociety.org.uk/poems/youre-not-black/.

Singh, Amardeep. n.d. “Mimicry and Hybridity in Plain English.” Accessed July 11, 2021.
https://www.lehigh.edu/~amsp/2009/05/mimicry-and-hybridity-in-plain-english.html.