Not Like You (A Reflection on Racism)

You say they are not like you.

Why is that?

Is it because of skin colour

That they are not black?

Or because they aren't white it must mean they are poor

And you cannot relate to those people which

Struggle to provide everyday

For their families and children

Or those with no pay?

Does it make a difference to you

To know they have struggled?

That they have been brought low,

Financially humbled?

Does it matter if you're Caucasian,

Not Black, brown or Asian?

Can we not be family if we are not the same colouring?

That Indian woman in the diary I see every morning

Se is my sister, struggling

To feed her family though she works seven days

Treated like a machine because of her race.

That mid twenties Polynesian male on the tv

Who stole, fought, or some other stupidity

He is my brother, hurting

For lack of education and parenting

Treated like another statistic of our society.

A young teenage mum on the bus

Who we look down our noses at,

She is my sister, working

At being a child and a mum

Treated like a stupid ignorant bum.

Then there is the Asian couple

That get screamed at in the street

They are my family, lonely

Needing friends for their second daughter, that they refused to abort,

Treated like invaders who should be fought.

They may not be white but they are the same

They cry and they bleed and they carry their shame

Deep inside and act tough on the exterior

While we white folk act all superior

Because we aren't the minority

We 'belong' here

And secretly wish they, and their problems, would disappear.

You say they are not like you,

In some ways that is true

But I hold a truth that I want to share with you.

In Christ there is no black, white, Christian or Jew

There is only salvation and blessing too.

I am like you, I am human

I just look in a different direction.

Turn your eyes with me to behold him

And you will see

We are not that different.