|
I realize I am the problem
when he says
"You live over there in nigger town, doan you boy?"
and I just bite my lip.
I taste blood
when he tells me he's gonna gut that mulatto bastard
child,
kill the nigger-lovin mother
and give the nigger a medal.
I realize I am the problem
as my incisor severs
the delicate skin of my bottom lip
and I say nothing.
He holds my paycheck
in his calloused hand
and even though my idealism doesn't pay the bills
I should starve
rather than choke on my own hypocrisy.
Brain shouting slogans
Act up, Stand up,
What do we want -- and end to injustice;
When do we want it -- when it's convenient.
My cupboard is full,
my belly is full
and I am full of rationalizations.
"Don't use that word around me,
please,"
I politely whisper.
But I know that's a gun
aimed as a toothless warning shot
and with my liberal egalitarian philosophies,
I espouse over drinks with my intellectual friends
I know it is a gun loaded with blank rounds.
I realize I am the problem
as General Nathan Bedford Forrest
still lives in stone in a park in Memphis
and four nameless girls, in their Sunday best,
lay rooted in a a cemetary in Birmingham
because I don't know their names.
There are no monuments
to the three civil rights pioneers
who were ambushed and burned in Mississippi.
I pretend I am outraged
but I don't know their names.
But I know Nathan Forrest's
name
and I know his initials were KKK
and that he was a great Southern General
and the South was fighting for freedom from tyranny
and that General Forrest
died of old age.
I have taken the classes,
I have read Elmore James,
I have read Eldridge Cleaver
but I'm just stockpiling good intentions
and the gateway to hell is paved with noble
intentions.
I realize I am the problem
as I feel blood pour from my lower lip.
Mine are the silent hands
that tighten nooses,
light gas-soaked crosses.
I have stomped on heads,
turned on fire hoses.
I was the baton.
I was one of the passengers who silently wept
as Rosa Park's wrists were bound behind her back.
My finger pulled
the trigger on Emmit Till
by silent consent.
I know I should starve
rather than
choke on my own hypocrisy.
But I grab my paycheck
and politely say,
"See you again next week,"
as I try to get the blood off my hands.
Copyright EPB,
1997
|
