I only told her my stories of the places I've been,
of the trauma, the drama, the things that I've seen.
The faraway, the exotic, it all seeped into her heart,
That's the only voodoo I do, you can't keep us apart.
Did you know, Mister Shakespeare, for no-one is sure
When you decided to draw Othello as a Moor
That his blackness, his otherness, would always raise queries
About whether the play's racist and other such theories
Pertaining to your own true thoughts as the writer, the drawer
Back in Elizabethan times, which of course was before all
these histories of trauma, inequality, migrations,
That have amplified difference, magnified segregations
Traded souls across borders, constructed black and white
As the slave and the master, the weak and the might.
So some say you couldn't know when you drew your hero
Back in the 1600s,
but it wasn't quite Ground Zero
'Cause I read in the CliffsNotes that back then, England's queen
proclaimed her discontent at what she had seen
as a swarm of 'negars and blackamoores' who crept into the realm
to the annoyance of her people, so in taking the helm
against these aliens, 'mostly infidels, consuming relief',
she made this guy Caspar, who was a merchant,
the new 'deportation' chief.
So Mister Shakespeare, though the slave trade hadn't yet turned hearts to stone
It could be argued that as humans we've always been prone
To attacking those weaker or darker or different
Or fearing the other or mocking their descent
In your own words, Mister Shakespeare, you pose black as the devil
And create characters who speak race at an astounding level
They describe Othello as 'devil', 'lascivious moor', 'black ram',
You evoke prejudice at every turn, and your hero is damned
by Brabantio's accusations, there's no way his white child
in her snowflake-white purity could ever be beguiled
to seek 'the sooty bosom of such a thing' as Othello
He claims witchcraft, or voodoo, black magic
– but hello You then subvert the whole thing with the poise and the grace
That you give to Othello, he stares State straight in the face
and says I only told her stories, of the places I've been,
of the trauma, the drama, the things that I've seen
The faraway, the exotic, it all seeped into her heart,
That's the only voodoo that I do, you can't keep us apart.
And it made me think a little of the art world's view of The Other
As I am a brown female who is yet to discover
How to be in the mainstream of the art world's white male tower
They like my stories, but from a distance, those great titans of power
Anyway, Mister Shakespeare...
James Earl Jones performed Othello's speech about voodoo
to Barack at the White House, it's on YouTube, and...you knew
so well back then how to write for The Other
How to give credence to difference and give words to a brother
So I can see why this role garners so much attention
It's a role any black actor worth his salt hopes to mention
But wait, Mister Shakespeare, back in your day, there were no
black actors – or women – playing your treasured roles
Only white ones, Nicholas Burt, Edwin Forrest, Edmund Keen,
Ira Aldridge was black but some found that obscene
What is obscene to me is how recently blackface was banned in Othello
It's a total disgrace
Let's give thanks then to Paul Robeson who finally brought to the part
All the honour, the grandeur, the valour of heart
That you wrote into your art that has bewitched generations
With its twists and its nuance and its reverberations
It is the crossover of nations that makes Othello the most coveted role
For a black actor, because it comes from somewhere
way, way down deep in the migratory soul.
So, dear Mister Shakespeare, did you choose the dark charcoal for his, I quote, 'sooty skin'
To make a point about race, and who can, who does, and who should fit in?