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Commentary: Civil & Human Rights |
American Heritage, a poem
by Mark M Seeger
Email: mseeger33 (at) aol.com (verified) |
Current rating: 0
14 Feb 2004 |
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A radical poem in the burdened tradition of American history, W.E.B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes, Martin Luther King, and others. |
White man in a black suit
You abused my people
This you can’t refute
How your metal does shine
White man in a black suit
You took my land
And raped my wife
How thankful we are for a repressed life
White man in a black suit
You sold my daughters
And shot my son
How you scalped my father for your fun
White man in a black suit
You said our religion must die
For your God was high in the sky
How God must be on your side
White man in a black suit
You brought better ways
And changed communities into cities
How your innovations helped the cause
White man in a black suit
You look so fine, must know the truth
Of neighbor against neighbor, us and them
How the seas separate us and our sin
White man in a black suit
You dominate, oppress, bomb, and lie
Political authority, morally benign?
How the structure is efficient
Black man in a white suit
You hope to live like the others
Happy home, kids, and cars
How the tables turn
He was black, she was brown
I was the only white man around
Traveling on a bus across the town
Multiplicity, diversity to be found
Some are paler than the black
With straighter hair or divergent noses
Accents and tongues of such lands
And large or small blistered hands
Accidents of nature that do not define our essence
Yet inevitably shape who we are
Such it is with life
How the conflict allows for choices
Daylight in the hearth of the urban frontier
Such words of mediocrity and expedition
Into the field of identity
How culture kneads our perception
Black man in a black suit
Most difficult journey
Shalln’t refute–that a lapse of
Colored vision is not an ease
Pass the ammunition, please
If I were black or you were brown
And they were white, all around
Such a life would be different, so
Thank your parents and hate your foe
The debacle draws on today
Racism won’t end in a day
Likewise, the economic factors, which contribute to war
If you’re black, there is no open door
The debacle draws on today
Racism won’t end in a day
Likewise, the economic factors, which contribute to war
The poor and black–the white man’s whore
So young to work, so young to fall
So young to die
So old to work, so old to fall,
So old to die |
