Colour Bar

In her poem “Colour Bar” Oodergoo Noonuccal states her firm belief that racism is extremely wrong and unjust. She achieves this by using visual techniques including metaphor and description; also by using sound techniques including alliteration, repetition, assonance and rhyme.

With the use of metaphor and description, Kath Walker expresses her opinion that racism is disgusting behaviour which shows the worst side of people. “The Colour Bar! It shows the meaner mind of moron kind,” suggests that racist people are ignorant. Another metaphor, “Justice a cant of hypocrites, content with precedent,” shows the poet’s opinion that some people who are supposedly ‘Christian’ are content to overlook racism even though they could do something; they think, that they have done enough. The extended metaphor, “As long as brothers banned from brotherhood you still exclude. The Christianity you hold so high is but a lie”, highlights how wrong and un-Christian racism is. A strong visual image is created by the language the poet uses in the description, “But when a child comes home in tears fierce anger sears”, is used. Both this example and the metaphor, “Vile men jeer because my skin is brown”’ suggest that the author and her family have experienced racism. Kath Walker has successfully used the visual techniques metaphor and description to express her opinion that racism is an unacceptable outrage.

Ms Walker achieves the expression of her belief that racism is wrong with the use of sound imagery, rhyme, alliteration, assonance and repetition. The combination of rhyme and alliteration in “…meaner mind of moron kind”, highlights the poet’s low opinion of racist people. The assonance in “fierce”, and “sears”, creates strong visual images for the reader of the vexation felt by parents when their children come in contact with racism. The repetition of “all”, emphasises the word and its meaning; it emphasises the idea that everyone is loved equally by god, no matter what their race is. In “… brothers banned from brotherhood You still exclude”, the idea of being left out or discriminated against because of your race is repeated using the words “banned” and “exclude” which have the same meaning. The poet states her idea that racism is wrong by using the sound imagery techniques alliteration, rhyme, assonance and repetition.

Kath Walker effectively communicates to the reader her strong feelings of outrage and disgust for racism through the poetic techniques she uses in her poem “Colour Bar”. These techniques include the visual techniques of metaphor and description; also the sound techniques of repetition, assonance, alliteration and rhyme.