This poem from the 1990s details the speaker’s involvement in a ‘racism workshop’, designed to highlight systemic prejudice against people of colour (in the United States specifically, here), and how a world-weariness attends such attempts to educate white Americans about the experiences of black people – although the end of the poem suggests that Chrystos, or at least the speaker of her poem, is still committed to the task of changing people’s minds and challenging their attitudes.Īgbabi (born 1965) is a British poet who often addresses important social themes, including race and racial identity.

Chrystos, ‘ Into the Racism Workshop’.Ĭhrystos is a Menominee writer and activist whose work often focuses on indigenous Americans’ civil rights, as well as feminism. The poem addresses the hardship faced by many black women in the US but also reiterates a message of hope, ending with the positive words, ‘Let us begin’.ħ. Lorde, one of the finest African-American poets of the twentieth century, takes in the difference between poetry and rhetoric as she responds to the upsetting realities of life in contemporary America, including racial prejudice.Īlthough she is probably best-known for her novel The Color Purple, Alice Walker (born 1944) is also a poet, who writes powerfully in this poem about being the woman with ‘the dark skin’.

Gwendolyn brooks about racism