Chocolate Face

I don’t think about my skin
Very often, although it is a colour
That has provoked a reaction in others
Both negative and at times

Patronisingly positive
Because my ethnicity might look
Like a really nice sun tan
But it isn’t a really nice sun tan.

Living in a cosmopolitan town or city
I am just another person
Of little interest
Or consequence

A far cry I suppose
From a childhood in which
I was the only brown kid in the school
And the other kids called me ‘Chocolate Face’

I don’t blame them
They were infants
And it was the eighties
When casual racism was acceptable

But to the adults who
I turned to for help
I would just say
The following advice is less than helpful
To an emotional and frightened
Five year old boy

“Call them something back”

“It could be worse – everyone likes chocolate”

“Stop telling tales”

To the kids I would, however, point out
That they got the colour wrong
I’m not the colour of chocolate
If anything I’m more the colour
Of toffee or possibly coffee

It does make me lament the state
Of the Education system
In Thatcher’s Britain
If children back then
Were unable to make
Such obvious distinctions
When it comes to colour