Fair and Ugly

by Jennifer Khan-Janif and Naima Ali

soft sharp brown eyes shrouded me in contempt

my perfect hijab became heavy with anguish

the turmoil in my mind fluttered to a halt

I looked at you and thought,

you are but me! A shade of my brown!

we are all Manuhiri to Aotearoa

you by choice, me by fate

your journey entwined with mine

I adorn my ancestral gift of survival with pride,

stitched with resilience and courage.

in my movements and interactions with fellow human beings.

the stony smile slithered across your fairer self

cold and hard.

ugly has a new colour, a shade of my own!

covid-19, the great leveller,

failed to cure the age-old disease

being the wrong shade!

Title Fair and Ugly – is playing on the words of Fair and Lovely which is a skin whitening cream used in India. The poem was written after a traumatic inter racial experience at Auckland Hospital by a member of the Creative Unlimited Collective during the first lockdown in April 2020.