Layla Riley-Hill Poet Free verse

The lie of inclusion

Failure was taboo, in a world full of expectations
Success was a burden we were forced to carry,
And burnout was a truth mistaken for laziness
Perfection was a cursed pushed on to black children,
And yet when we exceed it still isn’t enough,
Rest was a heaven we were promised after death,
And life was a test of struggle to get there

White kids are allowed to be average,
And are rewarded with excellence
But us being called average was a privilege we never got
Instead we would be criticised for breathing the wrong way,
And if we complained, we were called a problem
The system was built to break us,
Education is just a trap to bait our reactions,
Excluding us from the conversation,
But complaining about our ‘silence’,
This a silent strategy of educational violence

They erase our history, then they erase our voice,
A system favoured by bias,
Means in the end we will never get a choice -
To have our say,
Or to make space for our excellence,
School was never about inclusion -
But to send a message to all black children

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