Half Caste (poem)

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Half Caste is a poem by John Agard, a Caribbean writer. It has political connotations. John Agard is multiracial having a white Portuguese mother and a black father.

John Agard wrote "This imposition of half, half, half on a person's total human complexity implies that some sort of 'purity' has been subverted. A child of mixed race is a tangible, loving expression of human beings from different cultural backgrounds getting together - that should be seen not as something threatening, but as something enriching..."

The poem personifies the naivety and ignorance of modern day society when it comes to the perception of exogamous relationships. An instinctive minority still find such a manifestation most disagreeable. However Agard humourously explores the relationship between the black and white key sitting adjacent to each other, when composed together in a piece, would result in a half-complete symphony by Tchaikovsky. Such is the irrationality attained from the modern world that integration seems to be occurring at different selective rates around the world, when it comes to finding mutuality with such a previously taboo topic.