The Serowe Museum has an exhibit on writer Bessie Head. She was born in South Africa to a white mother and black father, which was illegal. Our guide said it was lucky that the authorities hadn’t broken her neck. I had not heard of mixed race children being killed under apartheid, and I asked our main guide if that was true, which he confirmed. I wrote this poem reflecting on that. Now that we’re back in wifi, I have been Googling a bit and have not been able to substantiate that. Here is an account of what it was like to be an illegal mixed race child under apartheid, though. Trevor Noah’s autobiography, Born a Crime, also addresses this.
dark days in South Africa
there was a time
when black + white
equaled a little wrung neck
born babies accorded
no right to be
by some misguided man
dead sure of his
righteousness
stealing little whispers of breath
all to keep the world
less colored
