An Education of Discrimination — Spoken Word by JJ ‘Compass’

Lon­don based — spoken word artist  JJ ‘Com­pass’ expresses a needed truth !

An Edu­ca­tion of Discrimination 

So what’s the grounds for discrimination?
Female, poor, brown, from a dif­fer­ent nation?
Faith, face shape, sexu­al orientation?
Abil­ity, polit­ics, lost generations?

I’ve felt the force,
Of ignor­ance with no remorse,
Telling me my melanin,
Must dic­tate my course.

Like the skin, not what’s in,
Is where our des­tinies begin.
Yeah the his­tory is here,
But life’s not just where we’ve been.

I always try to live this,
Break free from the stiffness.
Not warped by the woes of the world,
That I’ve witnessed.

I remem­ber days past,
School pulled from stand­ard class.
For a spe­cial­ised project,
But to me it was a farce.

See, the inten­tion that was mentioned,
Was the ignor­ance prevention,
Of the struggle in our veins,
Of the chains and detentions.

For the know­ledge I was grateful,
I lay that on the table,
but so less impressed,
How we were sor­ted and labelled.

See with this project,
You could only get in,
If you had tanned, brown,
Black, Melan­in skin.

So while teach­er go on,
‘bout tak­ing pride in ‘our side’,
I can’t not notice,
This classroom apartheid.

It didn’t gel with me,
But she didn’t seem to see.
That we shouldn’t segregate,
This Human History.

See my blood bears,
Col­on­iser and Colony.
From both ‘sides’ stares,
But won’t let that both­er me.

So, just as I,
Won’t split myself in half.
Neither should this knowledge,
Be col­our filtered in class.

How can we deconstruct,
These social constructs,
That have strangled so many,
Left so many so fucked.

If the very found structure,
Of the sys­tem that we learn,
Can’t provide some instruction,
To fix bridges that were burned?

-The times are a ‘chan­ging.
And we shall overcome.
So at this dawn­ing of a dream,
Let us rise, like the Sun.