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after Aaron Samuels

 

Some people would deny that I’m Jamaican British.
Anglo nose. Hair straight. No way I can be Jamaican British.


They think I say I’m black when I say Jamaican British
but the English boys at school made me choose: Jamaican, British?

 

Half-caste, half mule, house slave — Jamaican British.
Light skin, straight male, privileged — Jamaican British.


Eat callaloo, plantain, jerk chicken — I’m Jamaican.
British don’t know how to serve our dishes; they enslaved us.


In school I fought a boy in the lunch hall — Jamaican.
At home, told Dad, I hate dem, all dem Jamaicans — I’m British.

 

He laughed, said, you cannot love sugar and hate your sweetness,
took me straight to Jamaica — passport: British.


Cousins in Kingston called me Jah-English,
proud to have someone in their family — British.


Plantation lineage, World War service, how do I serve Jamaican British?

When knowing how to war is Jamaican British.

Jamaican British

Raymond Antrobus

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translated from the Arabic written by
Dunya Mikhail