Fun-Sized Diversity

Excerpt from Fun-Sized Diversity by Mohammad Awad, Student Anthology Diversity 2019.

You


are much like your cultural dishes; 

You have no taste. 

You prefer 

Me 

To my cousins. 

Because


when I speak


I don’t have the accent 

or 

At least not as much as 

the rest of               them,

Not as rough


around the edges 

Because 

I trim my beard,

Don’t wear my cultural gear


and when I teach you the proper way to say

Falafel 

It falls on deaf ears. 

Because of my lighter skin

Despite my ethnic origins

I’m easier to swallow.

To consume.

A walking, talking

Confetti of Culture

Pristinely packaged

to tell your friends you’ve managed

To catch another one, 

Like I’m your fucking Pokémon. 

Your

FUN-SIZED: Diversity Package. 

Keep my Identity

in your pocket,

Pull it out

When it suits

You 

Really don’t understand what discrimination feels like. 

How it tastes, bitter on your tongue

like biting on the forbidden apple,

much like Snow White’s


evil Step-Mum 

You


are the Problem,


disguising yourself as the Solution.


You truly do still desire to be the Fairest

of them all. 

Even when you desire


Ethnic features,


they are only desirable on Ivory skin,


Shame brown women for their bodies


while you purchase an upgrade to thick-slim, 

You have spent so long


Telling each other think-thin,


It is not our fault


The West has fallen


out of Love


with its kin. 

The 2020 Sydney University Student Anthology is now open for submissions on the topic of climate change, so send us your artworks, poetry, short fiction and non-fiction. Submit here.