THERE ARE A MILLION PROBLEMS IN THE WORLD, WHY SHOULD YOU THINK BLACK LIVES SHOULD BE ONE OF THEM?
For every 1 child dying on land, there is 2 dying at sea from Ignorance and Negligence
An estimated 362,000 refugees and migrants risked their lives crossing the Mediterranean Sea in 2016.
In the twelve months up to March 2017, the 51 children were locked up in immigration detention, despite a Government promise in 2010 to end the practice.
I have a strong passion for fashion, dance, music, art/design, teaching and performing. This was ignited by the struggles I had in my past as a child immigrant, being left in the country to survive. Finding ways to distract me was the key to the growth of my talent & my ongoing success in the arts. My passion for arts begins with a willingness to help others smile and feel good in their skin. At the age of 12, I was struggling with showing how I felt, I was never good with words, so I used my body, mind and hands and started to dance and creating art and garments as a form of language and outlet of my frustrations. I attended an Arts school, I learnt to dance, draw, sew, act and make music. With each step, the sound becoming a letter, and each choreography, composition becoming a story. I slowly found myself and learnt how to express my true feelings while enlightening or uplifting others. My body has been itching to move ever since.
From my personal experience in relation to immigration, race, depression, family (the lack of) and depression and why it is a negative thing in the ethnic community… I once had a close death experience when I was an immigrant struggling in the U.K. while paying for my college fees, being homeless, and looking over my shoulder worrying if am going to see a van with the blue righting of border force. At Kingston bridge one night in November at the age of 17 I decided I would just walk into the Thames and it would just make everything ok. Standing there was the longest 1 min before stepping down the ledge when the cold water started to soak through my socks up to my legs and pass up my belly to my chest I panic and pull myself out. I say thing not to say that I chickened out. I say this to say that I was willing to kill myself because the county that I am still struggling into this day. Never knew about a young black boy with short black hair was ready to be another body in the river Thames history. Why do some kids have to struggle more than any adult have to face in their lifetime? Why should a future life have to be a risk because a country chooses to say they don’t belong? Why is it that when someone tries to help, they are attack and targeted. So, others learn to protect themselves and their family, so they don’t risk the same attack.
To this day I thank God for companies such as the once well-known Kids Company and F.A.D.
Silent waves
What do you know about?
Being neglected
Being abandoned
When I was seen as a burden rather than a blessing.
If I drowned in the Kings Thames like me
Words that everyone doubted pithing me
And the learned to just neglect rather try to understand.
It is just like a silent wave,
With the silence breath that wasn’t taken before the water was swallow, hungry needing to touch the bottom, only to float back up without a beat. but still to put to Everything that can be said or say
am black I know, but I have learnt to be proud and unapologetic. So, When you look at me please; don’t see a drug dealer,
See me, thank you.
When you look at me, please don’t see a thief,
See me, respect to you.
When you see me, don’t just see through me,
I can see you, so see me
Just that’s one love.
David Ashani Bennie
Follow David