Mwinso Denkabe

Monster. Mwinso Denkabe describes one with dark soulless eyes, abnormally dark skin, supernatural, more or less. Feeling trapped inside his own body that others look upon with prejudice, Mwinso references his experience as a black individual living in this society. These encounters surrounding racism and preconceptions prompted him to write his protest poem about racial injustice in his life.

Similar to many other contestants, Mwinso speaks his thoughts and stories through an emotion-filled literary work. Mwinso refers to the unspeakable tragedy of Waltki Cermoun Williams, where he, an unarmed black man lying on the ground, was shot 17 times by police officials.

Along with the tragedies that surround him, Mwinso has had to deal with his fair share of discrimination, one such incident inspiring the title of his poem.

“I went to a friend’s house in eighth grade toward the end of the school year, and I had to put my bike on the side of his house,” Mwinso said. “This guy in a car drove up and got out, and said he believed we were going to steal some stuff, meanwhile he was looking straight at me. I tried to assure him we weren’t trying to steal anything and stepped up to him. He gave me this look like I was some ‘animal’ or something and took a step back.”