THE INHERITED SHADE OF MY SKIN

For George Floyd

By Chandramohan S.

I join an entourage into the past

wide-eyed, curious,

like a child

checking himself in the mirror

ascertaining how shiny his skin

could get in available light,

and dream,

if I will ever outshine the rising sun,

and how my name  could ever be free

warped in a different shade of melanin.

Chandramohan S (b.1986) is an Indian English Dalit poet and literary critic based in Trivandrum, Kerala. His accolades include a shortlist for Srinivas Rayaprol Poetry Prize 2016 and the fellowship at the International Writing Program(IWP-2018) at the University of Iowa. Letters to Namdeo Dhasal, published in the year 2016 was a shortlist for Yuva Puraskar of Sahitya Akademi. 

Lewis Gordon

Lewis R. Gordon is Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Global Affairs and Head of the Philosophy Department at the University of Connecticut and Distinguished Scholar at The Most Honourable PJ Patterson Centre for Africa-Caribbean Advocacy at The University of the West Indies, Mona. His recent books include Freedom, Justice, and Decolonization (Routledge, 2021);  Fear of Black Consciousness (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux and Penguin Books, 2022); Black Existentialism and Decolonizing Knowledge: Writings of Lewis R. Gordon (Bloomsbury, 2023); and “Not Bad for an N—, No?”/ «Pas mal pour un N—, n'est-ce pas? » (Daraja Press, 2023). Thirtieth Anniversary editions of his books Bad Faith and Antiblack Racism (Humanity Classics) and Fanon and the Crisis of European Man (Routledge) are forthcoming 2025.