An Op-Ed in the Form of a Poem, Revised
(An earlier version appeared on my Channel Surfing blog)
Dear Congressman: I see
you’re at it again, spouting your
racist nonsense and using your position
to foster hate. It seems like only
yesterday that you prattled on about
lesser subgroups and Western Civilization,
how we face a return to “the Dark Ages”
if we don’t defend White culture. I told you
then, your hood is showing, not that you care
what an East Coast Jew like me has to say.
Now you say you didn’t know the image
you retweeted came from the racist right,
a defender of western, by which he means
white Christian, culture. The photo of what
appears-to-be brown-skinned refugees
crossing the Mediterranean — you
paint it as an invasion. An infestation.
Europe is waking up, you say. Will
America … in time? The lack of empathy,
of even sympathy, for your fellow man.
But I should not be surprised. You’re
adept at keeping your hood well hid.
I should ignore you, I’m told, chalk
our differences up to politics, agree
to disagree. I can’t. What you say
matters. You’ve been duly elected,
represent a half million people in Congress.
What you say matters, and what you say —
it’s the same dangerous racism spouted
by the president. The same hateful rhetoric
used to justify violence. You wear a suit
and tie, hide the hood, maybe don
a hoodie, Iowa State emblazoned on the chest,
to root on the Cyclones like a good
American. Just not like Trayvon,
or all those protesters marching
in solidarity then and now, not like
Colin Kaepernick, or his fellow
players, kneeling as the anthem plays,
a symbolic shout of no, a we will not
stand as. black bodies fall with the regularity
of a metronome. I can see your hood,
Mr. King. White. Pointy. Metaphorical,
but I think it fits. Trayvon was killed
in a hoodie, maybe because of it. Only
thugs wear hoodies, said Bill O’Reilly.
Zimmerman tracked the kid’s hooded
black skin across a Florida night — a provocation,
a death sentence. Zimmerman, Latino
on his mother’s side, but imbued
with the magic privilege of white skin.
Yes, privilege. As in knowing he can buy
some Skittles and tea and walk home
undisturbed by the neighborhood watch.
In knowing he probably won’t get shot,
won’t bleed out on the sidewalk, knowing
he doesn’t strike fear in passing strangers.
Mr. King, you offered sympathies
to the families, Martin’s, Zimmerman’s, but
put the blame on the kid, the one
dubbed thug. Imagine being followed,
wondering what the middle-aged man
on the cell phone might do. Imagine
being tailed in the mall, on the street,
on the roads, state cops pulling you over..
Remember what you said when Zimmerman
went free? That “if someone has you down
on the ground and they’re threatening to kill you”
it’s fine to “pull a gun out of your holster”
and “shoot to defend your life.” I have to ask,
does that go for Trayvon, for Philando,
for Walter Scott, Sandra Bland, Eric Garner,
and all the unnamed names, and those
yet to fall. You’ve made your answer clear.
Black kid dies, black kid’s fault. Just don’t
know their place. Profiling, you said, “needs to be
a component of good police work.”
So I’m not surprised when you distort history
to proclaim Western Civilization and white
Christians as supreme. “I’d ask you
to go back through history and figure out
where are these contributions that have been made
by these other categories of people.”
Categories. Classifications. Cataloging:
genetics, skin tone, language. You called
Mexicans dogs and traffic in the language of race.
“Where did any other subgroup of people
contribute more to civilization?” you ask.
Than the pyramids in Egypt
or South America? Than algebra
or astronomy? Have you heard
of Adam’s Calendar in Kenya, called
the African Stonehenge, as accurate
a timekeeper as has existed? And what
of jazz and blues, of hip hop, soul
and pop. Rock and roll may never die,
but it was birthed by Mahalia Jackson,
Blind Lemon Jefferson and Robert Johnson.
But it’s the West, you say, only the West
that made the world, as though the pasty white
Jesus of myth came from the snowy north
and not the Levant. “The idea of multi-culturalism,”
you say, “and that every culture is equal —
that’s not objectively true.” It’s just
political correctness, you say, but there’s
your hood again. It’s on your desk
posing as a Confederate flag. In your
argument that we don’t understand
the history of the South. In your belief
that we — white Americans — have nothing
to be sorry about. Tell that to Claude McKay,
who gazed darkly into a future built on sand
and saw the nation’s hate and bitter bread
eroding its might. I know you can’t see it,
long for the America that used to be, before
“demographics” sweetened our color palette.
Somewhere, Pop’s cornet is crying as you speak,
as Trump continues to bang the drum of hate
and fear, as he uses the White House as his own
personal ATM. The rabble of Jim Crow
are seeding the firmament of the American soul,
cashing in the promissory note deposited
with the Constitution, in the proclamation
that all men are created equal. Can’t you
see it, Mr. King? Can’t you see it?