This poem describes brown people as proud, just, and kind. It portrays brown people as having faced affliction, pain, shame, and exile throughout history but continuing their fight for peace, rights, dignity, and self-determination. The poem expresses a spirit of yearning for freedom and a dream of a time when brown people will be valued.

1. |||||||||| We are People ||||||||||
We are a people, a brown people, a proud people
Your people, my people, our people
A just people, a kind people, We are people, a brown people.
A vibrancy in motion, a devotion to non-supremacy
We are the afflicted ones, the forgotten many
The collectors of tears, the originators of pain
A spirit of yearning for freedom like the rain.
We are a people, a brown people, a proud people
Your people, my people, our people
A just people, a kind people, We are people, a brown people.
The very seed of humanity, shunned, shamed and exiled
Like bile so vile, denied what is divinely mine
Uprooted in the night, scattered and battered for their delight
The fight continues for peace and rights.
We are a people, a brown people, a proud people
Your people, my people, our people
A just people, a kind people, We are people, a brown people.
Hold tight tonight, with all your might the dream that’s right
The fire so bright for a dignity deprived
Daughter to the sand, Father to the soil, Mother of us all
Lead us, bind us to self-determination, through body, through mind
We sing through tears, and cries of famine when will we be valued again.
We are a people, a brown people, a proud people
Your people, my people, our people
A just people, a kind people, We are people, a brown people.
By Olehile Boitumelo Mokgele