poèmes d’Una Marson

Née en Jamaïque en 1905, Una Marson déménage à Londres en 1932. Dans “Nigger” / « Nègre », insulte qui donne son titre au poème, Marson retourne le stigmate pour dénoncer le racisme systé-mique ordinaire dont elle est victime pendant ses années londoniennes. Ce poème paraît au Royaume-Uni en 1933 dans Keys, revue trimestrielle de la League of Coloured Peoples, une des premières associations anti-racistes de l’époque. Una Marson l’intègre dans son recueil autopublié en 1937, The Moth and the Star.

They called me “Nigger,”
Those little white urchins,
They laughed and shouted
As I passed along the street,
They flung it at me:
“Nigger! Nigger Nigger!”
What made me keep my fingers
From choking the words in their throats?
What made my face grow hot,
The blood boil in my veins
And tears spring to my eyes?
What made me go to my room
And sob my heart away
Because white urchins
Called me “Nigger”?
You of the white skinned Race,
You who profess such innocence,
I’ll tell you why ‘tis sin to tell
Your offspring Coloured folks are queer,
Black men are bogies and inferior far
To any creature with a skin made white.
We will not be called “Niggers”
Since this was the favourite curse
Of those who drove the Negroes
To their death in days of slavery.
“A good for nothing Nigger,”
“Only one more Nigger gone”
They would repeat as though
He were a chicken or a rat…