A Black British speaker insists he is not the problem, describing playground taunts and the stereotypes that limit what people expect of him, and calls on Britain to get things right.
How Zephaniah's Jamaican-influenced voice, refrain, rhyme and irony challenge racist stereotypes and place the problem with racism, not with him.
How to use the lesson's key quotations in an essay, with a short worked paragraph.
Key quotations: 'I am not de problem', 'bear de brunt', 'Now I am branded athletic', 'I can do more dan dance', 'Yu put me in a pigeon hole', 'no chips on me shoulders', 'Mother country get it right', 'Sum of me best friends are white'.
Form: two stanzas of short, rhyming lines with a refrain, in a Jamaican-influenced voice made for performance, ending on an ironic line that turns a familiar excuse around.
Context: Benjamin Zephaniah (1958–2023), born and raised in Handsworth, Birmingham, to a Jamaican mother and a Barbadian father; a dub poet, performing his words to reggae rhythms; his own experience of racism, including from the police; and his refusal of an OBE in 2003 because of what the word empire meant to him.
Compares well with: Half-caste (racism and a speaker who answers back), The Class Game (stereotypes and pride in identity) and Cousin Kate (being labelled by others).
