Abolition

He was a shadow
and his body moved
across the cobbles
As swift as the night
at the peak of summer

Isolated
in a place where night and day
are defined only by the glimmer of light
that pulls itself through the smog quilted sky

And where strangers pass by
judging each other on the quality of their palms
"Chapped" and "almost white"
but not quite enough

to please these blowzy men
donning flatcaps and unironed shirts
who scoff, at the surface
of an issue
they cannot begin to comprehend

Creating hierachies
of race
to replace the one of class
they fight so poignantly
to abolish

He speaks.
when he can
with a voice balmy as air
though laden with burden
his freedom tainted by history
not yet made historic

A short poem inspired by the channel 4 series The Mill, specifically the character Peter Gardener. The show is set in a Victorian mill, we see the male workers fighting for class equality, forming unions to help them earn a fairer wage, and yet amongst this attempt to create equality, there is an undertone of racism when a man joins the village from a slave plantation, and is immediately ostracised.
In the poem I refer to Peter as a "Shadow", his placement in the village is seen to be temporary and we often see him sat alone, pushed into the darkness by the other workers. Men who work just as hard as Peter turn their backs on him, simply due to the colour of his skin. The show helps to highlight the issues of racism, sexism and class prejudices that were alive at the time. 
In the 3rd stanza I talk about the way people judged each other "on the palms of their hands", I use the adjectives "chapped" and "almost white" to describe Peters hands, "chapped" reflecting the damage caused by hard work. I used the phrase "almost white" as a direct reference to a quote from the show (The Mill) when a naive character sees Peters hands and states "they aren't black on the inside".
I hope I have been able to touch upon the issues highlighted in the show.