'Brown Bother'

Click here if you would like to watch Joshua Iosefo's poem.

Recently at Mt Roskill Grammar a Prefect, Joshua Iosefo  wrote a poem about something very important. ‘Brown Brother’, which is the name of the poem was about stereotypes. Why did he write this poem? Well this is because all the prefects had to write a speech but Joshua’s unique idea was to write a poem. This poem got discovered on youtube by Campbell Live, as his friend, Rashad had uploaded it and they screened it on national tv.

I think the message behind this poem was very strong and important. To me it meant not to listen to stereotypes because, if you do that it limits yourself and it’s racist. One of the other things that it reminded me of while listening to this poem is that it doesn’t matter what skin tone/colour you are you shouldn’t ever mock anyone this is whether you’re white, brown, dark-skinned or anything else.

Some of the examples he gives during his poem, which I reckon are quite important are:
- ‘And whenever someone tries to breach my comfort zone, or whenever I don’t have anything else to say in defence in an argument I’m just going to that you’re a racist. That your words are a mockery to my skin tone and my colour.”
- ‘Do not be afraid to be the change. Not a change in skin tone or colour, but a change of mind-set.’

This poem to me means that though we may be different colours, we shouldn’t be a stereotype and label people and put them in a group in your heads because that’s just wrong! Also we, people shouldn’t be afraid of who we are because we’re afraid of others judging us. In your life there will many ups and downs but you should always have to keep your head up and strive to succeed and don’t be limited by what other people expect in you. Most importantly Joshua Iosefo's message was to never limit yourself and be who you are.