“Stockholm’s Requiem,” by Kamelyta
Niggas on Campus
“Light nigga, dark nigga, faux nigga, real nigga
Rich nigga, poor nigga, house nigga, field nigga
Still nigga, still nigga”— Jay-Z, The Story of OJ
I am afraid that we do not have the ability
to be anything else.
All we do is play dress up.
What is a student?
What does it mean to belong to an
Establishment?
We wake up at 7 in the morning,
Pack our lunch,
Attend our classes and submit our assignments.
We’ve been here for years but we’ve never
arrived.
What does it mean to be “accepted”?
After the racial war, they said we have to let
black people in.
This is not equality. These are just white institutions with black
people in them.
What have we really achieved?
The government tries to make us feel
better about systemic oppression by
putting things in our hands
and letting us feel the weight of them.
We understand that everything can and
will be taken away.
We do not really know what it means to own
anything.
Mia Maisha is a 20-year-old university student studying law at Stellenbosch University in Cape Town, South Africa, although she is originally from the D.R.C. Her work mainly centers around the daily struggle black people have to endure in the face of black oppression and discrimination.
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