School of Distance Education

Rong Radio Station 
by Benjamin Zepaniah 
Benjamin Obadiah Iqbal Zepaniah was born and 
raised in Birmingham, England. His poetry is strongly 
influenced by his Jamaican heritage and what he calls 
street politics. Zepaniah uses poetry as a medium to 
voice his concerns over matters such as racism, sexism 
and homophobia. He made use of his poetic abilities to 
bring light to issues that are marginalized. To 
revolutionize poetry was the sole objective of his. His 
anthologies include 
The Dread affair: Collected 
Poems
(1985) 
Rasta Time in Palestine
(1990)
Too 
Strong
(2000) and 
We’re Britain 
(2002).
Rong Radio Station embodies everything 
Zepaniah stood up for in his entire life. The poem is an 
aggressive portrayal of life as a black man. He realizes 
that he had been listening to the wrong radio station. AS 
a result, he believed in stereotypes such as all black men 
are bad and white men are saviors. He believed that 
white man burden is true. He perceived himself as a drug 
freak, one that needs redemption. He goes on list all the 
common stereotypes that have been created ever since 
media took control of our conscience. Saving African 
children from poverty because Africa is dominated by 
dictators, believing that you need to fill into certain box 
to be normal, all Muslims are terrorists, terrorism cant be 
done by our “white” government, all these ideas, he 
swallowed without doubt. But now he cane to his senses 
and realized that he had been listening to the wrong radio 
station.

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School of Distance Education
English Literature in the 21
st
 century
17 
He goes on to list another set of misconceptions 
that we learned along the way. To us a Palestinian child 
doesn’t matter, hating Iran is normal, bombing 
Afghanistan is alright, bombing your way to peace is a 
practical solution, all these lies that media and the 
government cooked for citizens, people believed it, 
without suspicion.
Anti black violence, media misinterpretation, 
state violence, they firm the major part of Zepaniah' s 
poetry. Imperialistic nature of state and the egalitarian 
western democratic social order is challenged so many 
times by the clever use of sarcasm and imagery. 
Zephaniah, throughout his life exposed to abuse and 
rights violations, makes this poem an open book. He 
questions the identity vested upon him by white men and 
authoritarian states. The poem is a battleground where 
his bestowed identity and his authentic self come to 
confront one another.
Another major point Zephaniah makes is how the 
Middle East has been perceived by the media. The War 
on Terror was an imperialistic phenomenon, he believes. 
Favoring the imperialistic interests, the media functions 
as a mouthpiece for blatant lies. The poem takes its aim 
at interlocking configurations of state violence, anti 
black racial domination and media representations of 
people of color.

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School of Distance Education
English Literature in the 21
st
 century
18