Africa's Plea

I am not you -
but you will not
give me a chance
will not let me be me

'If I were you' -
but you know
I am not you,
yet you will not
let me be me.

You meddle, interfere
in my affairs
as if they were yours
and you were me.

You are unfair, unwise,
foolish to think
that I can be you,
talk, act
and think like you.

God made me me.
He made you you.
For God's sake
Let me be me.

INTERPRETATION:

      This poem is about being you, loving yourself and respecting others. If we try to analyze it base on its content it express someone’s desire to be free and respected. The title itself, African’s plea, tells lots of story about the poem. We all know that most of the slavery incident happened in Africa or experienced by Africans that I have come up that this poem centered about the idea of discrimination. The first to fourth stanzas are all dealing with the feeling of being suppressed by other person and being compared by other.  Those stanzas implied that nobody can make another person exactly like him and what  we all have to do is to accept that and learn to respect other. The last stanza express the equality among man and that men differ from one another because that was how God made us-full of distinction. So there’s no need for us to compare one another or to force other person to act, to talk and to think like the way we do. What important is we know how to respect others the way we respect ourselves.