culture fix

1.

if a person can come to america
and still be "from" somewhere,
they are not - yet - members of a race.

what is happening to the mexicans here
is not so different from the italians a century back:
cultivating the delta and hanging like strange fruit.
there's no reason why today's spics won't end up just as white as yesterday's dagos.

2.

it is popular now to make racial issues
out of matters that are entirely otherwise
while simultaneously proclaiming the 'withering away'
of race as a concept.
race withers like stalin's dictatorship,
not like grapes on a vine.
i am an american;
i cannot imagine my country without race.

3.

the only black people who'll say "let's not discuss race"
have spent a decade or more in 'all-white' environments.
surely i'd try and end the discussion as well,
in their position.
dominating everything else, what's to stop whites
from dominating the discourse around their own domination?
all the same, 'downplaying' the importance of race
is just another way to entrench us in it.

4.

the citizen's council was right:
those damn rednecks in the klan
forced integration
but!
the citizen's council has stayed in power.

5.

the boers and the zionists share a unique place in history.
the honest articulation of their goals,
codified in thousands of laws
and reinforced by american ammunition and the special branch
is a true gift to the rest of us.
in our situation, "we pay so much attention to their faces,
we miss the motion of their hands."
we are heirs to south africa,
but no one has told us yet.

6.

the 'old days' are right around the corner.
meanness, unrepentent arrogance and brutality
are increasingly 'en vogue' amongst the powerful;
the 'zeitgeist' of 1939 is once again feasible.
meanwhile in basra, the blunt antagonisms of this arrangement
are splattering about in the buses, cafes, market stands,
atvs and mosques
of everyday life.
still, the incessant TSA queues are blase;
nothing yet appears as a deterrant, or provocation.

7.

whenever the brazenness of the powerful
outstrips the tenacity of the exploited,
we are living in truly troubling times.
before the fires in the oilfields reach my doorstep,
there will be a long silence:
hands bound.
heads bowed.

8.

fifty years ago, i'd have been a 'race man.'
on whose side?
is a 'nigger-lover' any more courageous or honest
than an 'anti-racist'?
do people only take the stands that appearing threatening
in their age,
or do they occasionally surpass even that benchmark?
is it an accomplishment in-and-of-itself
to proclaim the moral bankruptcy of your times?