The Racial Issue Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

The Racial Issue

I know nothing about being black but when black people
speak about childhood poverty I sense empathy I too know
how it feels like being dismissed

Once I was invited to a birthday party by people who were
serious, I had nothing to give so my mother gave me two
tins of sardine in olive oil and the had very colourful
labels. I still hear the laughter it caused and still stings me
like being attacked by a beehive.

I`m not a nice person if I go into a shop and the staffs talk
into their phone I make my displeasure loudly I dislike
being ignored meekness left me years ago.

So I`m trying to say people can only discriminate against
you if feeling inferior. My wife, born in Kinshasa in Congo
does not understand black Americas struggle with slavery,
but it is up to the black Americans to rise above it.