In Nothing’s Changed the racism is the same as In Half Caste. The poem is about Tatamkhulu Afrika and about his life in Cape Town’s District 6. I find this poem racist because it says about the new, up-market a whites only inn. There’s a lot about the up-market that is racial
and the first thing I notice is when it says white’s only inn. Maybe this is linked with half caste and saying that T.A is a half-caste and is different. Another racial expression I found about the up-market is about the glass. “I press my nose to the clear panes” The glass in Nothing’s changed represents many things but here it is acting like a barrier that you cannot go through, I think the glass helps describes the racism and show how T.A feels.
The next topic I am going to talk about is the language shown in the poems. In ‘Half-Caste’ the language spoken is called patois, which is a blend language. I think John Agard decided to write in patois because he wanted the reader to know who he really was as an individual, as a whole. The language in ‘Half-Caste’ makes the poem seem conversational because it mentions ‘Yu’ a lot, so it’s like the poem is talking to you. It makes the reader aware of what’s happening and brings attention. In the poem some words that are said describe the anger and frustration such as ‘ah rass’, the word is defined as an expression of disgust and is from the language patois. This is a sign of anger and frustration in the poem.
In ‘Nothing’s changed’ the language shown is quite different. T.A uses angry language to express his feelings about the situation going on. He uses this angry language because he has experienced racial discrimination and he uses anger to describe how he felt and what happened at district 6. “Hands burn for a stone, a bomb, to shiver down the glass.” This quotation is from the end of the poem and it means that the boy wants to get a stone or a bomb and to throw it at the glass so he can get in to the inn. The boy cannot get into the inn though because is not allowed, he is not allowed because he is different and because they are racist to him. This quote says a lot about T.A’s anger against people who are racist. Between the two poems the language features shown in both of them are a bit differently shown but the explanation and meaning of the anger in both poems is about the same.
Apart from racism and language in these poems there is discrimination seen in both. First of all in ‘Nothing’s Changed’ I think the racism links together with the discrimination. An example of how they are linked is shown by the use of glass. Like I said about racism that the glass acts as a barrier separating the white people from the black, the glass is used as other things as well. It is used to represent power, wealthy ness and mainly control, but it’s saying that T.A doesn’t have power and control but is weak and powerless, he is being discriminated. There are other details in the poem that show the different worlds of south Africa ‘s District 6. For example there is rich and poor communities and here are some contrasts from the poem that show the difference between the rich and the poor. The food in the restaurants is very posh e.g. ‘haute cuisine’. The food in the café is very basic e.g. ‘ bunny chows’. These are the contrasts in ‘Nothing’s changed’ that separate the rich community from the poor.
In the poem ‘Half-Caste’ I think the racism links together with the discrimination just like in ‘Nothing’s changed’. The main thing here that I see that is discriminating is the word ‘Half-Caste’. The word Half Caste is used to discriminate people born of parents of different colour, it is now considered as insulting. So the word is used for racism because it’s against coloured people and it’s used for insulting people. In the poem ‘Half-Caste’ the word is used a lot because it is used to help describe what John Agard is saying. “When yu say half-caste yu mean Tchaikovsky sit down at dah piano an mix a black key wid a white key is a half-caste symphony”. Here John Agard is sort of asking a question and saying is a half-caste a symphony when Tchaikovsky mixes a white key with a black. In other terms the symphony could be used to describe a half-caste as a different person who is nice because a symphony is a music note that sounds better when other keys are mixed together.
The final topic I am going to talk about is the culture in both poems and how the culture relates to the anger and frustration. In ‘Half-Caste’ I think the poem is mainly directed against white people. I think this because the term ‘Half-Caste’ is used against different coloured people meaning that white people who are racist would say it. The text is very angry meaning that J.A is being called half-caste and he is explaining what a half-caste is. The poem is against white people though because white people are accused of being racist.
In Nothing’s changed the culture is slightly different unlike ‘Half-Caste’. I would say that the culture in ‘Nothing’s Changed’ is similar to the poem ‘Half-caste’ because it is about white people again except the poem isn’t against them it’s just about them. T.A had returned to District 6 only to find white people there and in the poem he explains about how they are here and how he is treated. I would say that the culture in this poem is about coloured people versus the white people and how they battle it out. But in the poem T.A uses angry language to describe how he feels about himself and the white people.
Now you have read all the topics hopefully you can see why these poems contain anger and frustration. It is because of the result of racism, discrimination, language and culture. Both the authors of the two poems used some kind of anger to describe how they felt by using the example of one of these topics.