To the fool who said I wasn’t British,
My father’s, father’s father was Cornish,
From a long line that worked the pits,
There’s a whisper of Welsh,
And a good dose of Essex –
64 sixth great- grandparents
For each human to exit –
Bring on DNA tests for xenophobes,
Extremists and racists,
To the fool who said I wasn’t British
Because I use the name Zenkevitch
Not Brown, Jones or Smith –
Though my ancestry has names like this
Along with Eastern European and Sephardic,
I am proud of my name and heritage,
I use my maiden name even after marriage
To my love of Northern parentage
Whose own ancestry goes wide and deep
Into this land and, at some point, overseas,
To the fool who said I wasn’t British,
Each one of us is multifaceted,
Every human has a wondrous mix
Of choice and cultural inheritance
And you and I are no different in this,
To the fool who said I wasn’t British –
Do you really know what British is?
A mix of Saxon, Norman, Viking, Pict
Was just the start of part of it,
To the fool who said I wasn’t British,
I was born it, others chose it
As they’ve done for countless centuries
In our interwoven histories,
To the fool who said I wasn’t British,
It is far from true, though they might wish it
For the Arian vision of their kind of Brexit,
I say to them; stop it, you’re being a twit.
Antonia Sara Zenkevitch
The 48% 