I wrote this in September of last year, 2020, before the election. Then, as now, I was feeling stymied and unable to speak. Subsequently, I did write: a series of short columns I published on Facebook, sometimes for my friends and sometimes for the public. I'm going to go on and publish this prose-poem now, and then will go reread those columns and see if I want to collect and post them to this blog.
Jan
If it was wrong to look at black people and say they were all the same
Then it's wrong to do the same thing to white people.
White people?
You're going to take all these people and put them all in the same basket?
Some of them didn't even know they were white.
Some of them wanted to be, but, before, you were telling them they weren't.
You must be seeing all of these people out of the eyes of black people
So they all look the same!
I've heard that before.
Somebody is always telling somebody else who and what they are.
Why? Let me ask you that; why?
In a previous life some people got to tell others what they were,
And still it goes on. The same people doing the talking
But with a different target.
Is that a change?
The old boss looks just like the new boss.
Let me give you an example
Of how none of this works.
Some of you are the same ones who judge Israel
Just like you are now judging America and the people you call white.
And what happened there?
Did your judgments fix Israel
And free Palestine?
No! What you didn't like became more so,
Then it spread:
We got Donald Trump
And creeping authoritarianism.
Here!
Your judging, which you meant to help, made things worse.
When you preach your religion of cherry-picked history
And black victimhood
You are making adolescents out of them
To meet a need of your own,
To absolve yourself, and
Eventually the ones who reject victimhood
Will emerge as leaders.
They will reject your offer of eternal victimhood
In favor of acting in history.
It can't happen soon enough.
