194 Racism and discrimination poems

Ugliest little boy that everyone ever saw. That is what everyone said. Even to his mother it was apparent— when the blue-aproned nurse came into the northeast end of the maternity ward bearing his squeals and plump bottom looped up in a scant receiving blanket, bending, to pass the bundle carefully into the waiting mother-hands—that this was no cute little ugliness, no sly baby waywardness that was going to inch away as would baby fat, baby curl, and baby spot-rash. The pendulous lip, the branching ears, the eyes so wide and wild, the vague unvibrant brown of the skin, and, most disturbing, the great head. These components of That Look bespoke the sure fibre. The deep grain. His father could not bear the sight of him. His mother high-piled her pretty dyed hair and put him among her hairpins and sweethearts, dance slippers, torn paper roses. He was not less than these, he was not more. As the little Lincoln grew, uglily upward and out, he began to understand that something was wrong. His little ways of trying to please his father, the bringing of matches, the jumping aside at warning sound of oh-so-large and rushing stride, the smile that gave and gave and gave—Unsuccessful! Even Christmases and Easters were spoiled. He would be sitting at the family feasting table, really delighting in the displays of mashed potatoes and the rich golden fat-crust of the ham or the festive fowl, when he would look up and find somebody feeling indignant about him. What a pity what a pity. No love for one so loving. The little Lincoln loved Everybody. Ants. The changing caterpillar. His much-missing mother. His kindergarten teacher. His kindergarten teacher—whose concern for him was composed of one part sympathy and two parts repulsion. The others ran up with their little drawings. He ran up with his. She tried to be as pleasant with him as with others, but it was difficult. For she was all pretty! all daintiness, all tiny vanilla, with blue eyes and fluffy sun-hair. One afternoon she saw him in the hall looking bleak against the wall. It was strange because the bell had long since rung and no other child was in sight. Pity flooded her. She buttoned her gloves and suggested cheerfully that she walk him home. She started out bravely, holding him by the hand. But she had not walked far before she regretted it. The little monkey. Must everyone look? And clutching her hand like that. . . . Literally pinching it. . . . At seven, the little Lincoln loved the brother and sister who moved next door. Handsome. Well- dressed. Charitable, often, to him. They enjoyed him because he was resourceful, made up games, told stories. But when their More Acceptable friends came they turned their handsome backs on him. He hated himself for his feeling of well-being when with them despite— Everything. He spent much time looking at himself in mirrors. What could be done? But there was no shrinking his head. There was no binding his ears. “Don’t touch me!” cried the little fairy-like being in the playground. Her name was Nerissa. The many children were playing tag, but when he caught her, she recoiled, jerked free and ran. It was like all the rainbow that ever was, going off forever, all, all the sparklings in the sunset west. One day, while he was yet seven, a thing happened. In the down-town movies with his mother a white man in the seat beside him whispered loudly to a companion, and pointed at the little Linc. “THERE! That’s the kind I’ve been wanting to show you! One of the best examples of the specie. Not like those diluted Negroes you see so much of on the streets these days, but the real thing. Black, ugly, and odd. You can see the savagery. The blunt blankness. That is the real thing.” His mother—her hair had never looked so red around the dark brown velvet of her face—jumped up, shrieked “Go to—” She did not finish. She yanked to his feet the little Lincoln, who was sitting there staring in fascination at his assessor. At the author of his new idea. All the way home he was happy. Of course, he had not liked the word “ugly.” But, after all, should he not be used to that by now? What had struck him, among words and meanings he could little understand, was the phrase “the real thing.” He didn’t know quite why, but he liked that. He liked that very much. When he was hurt, too much stared at— too much left alone—he thought about that. He told himself “After all, I’m the real thing.” It comforted him.

A group of young men in Jacksonville, Florida, arranged to celebrate Lincoln’s birthday in 1900. My brother, J. Rosamond Johnson, and I decided to write a song to be sung at the exercises. I wrote the words and he wrote the music. Our New York publisher, Edward B. Marks, made mimeographed copies for us, and the song was taught to and sung by a chorus of five hundred colored school children. Shortly afterwards my brother and I moved away from Jacksonville to New York, and the song passed out of our minds. But the school children of Jacksonville kept singing it; they went off to other schools and sang it; they became teachers and taught it to other children. Within twenty years it was being sung over the South and in some other parts of the country. Today the song, popularly known as the Negro National Hymn, is quite generally used. The lines of this song repay me in an elation, almost of exquisite anguish, whenever I hear them sung by Negro children. Lift every voice and sing Till earth and heaven ring, Ring with the harmonies of Liberty; Let our rejoicing rise High as the listening skies, Let it resound loud as the rolling sea. Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us, Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us. Facing the rising sun of our new day begun, Let us march on till victory is won. Stony the road we trod, Bitter the chastening rod, Felt in the days when hope unborn had died; Yet with a steady beat, Have not our weary feet Come to the place for which our fathers sighed? We have come over a way that with tears has been watered, We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered, Out from the gloomy past, Till now we stand at last Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast. God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, Thou who hast brought us thus far on the way; Thou who hast by Thy might Led us into the light, Keep us forever in the path, we pray. Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee, Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee; Shadowed beneath Thy hand, May we forever stand. True to our God, True to our native land.

My mother bore me in the southern wild, And I am black, but O! my soul is white; White as an angel is the English child: But I am black as if bereav'd of light. My mother taught me underneath a tree And sitting down before the heat of day, She took me on her lap and kissed me, And pointing to the east began to say. Look on the rising sun: there God does live And gives his light, and gives his heat away. And flowers and trees and beasts and men receive Comfort in morning joy in the noonday. And we are put on earth a little space, That we may learn to bear the beams of love, And these black bodies and this sun-burnt face Is but a cloud, and like a shady grove. For when our souls have learn'd the heat to bear The cloud will vanish we shall hear his voice. Saying: come out from the grove my love & care, And round my golden tent like lambs rejoice. Thus did my mother say and kissed me, And thus I say to little English boy. When I from black and he from white cloud free, And round the tent of God like lambs we joy: Ill shade him from the heat till he can bear, To lean in joy upon our fathers knee. And then I'll stand and stroke his silver hair, And be like him and he will then love me.

I've always wanted to play the part of that puckish pubescent Filipino boy in those John Wayne Pacific-War movies. Pepe, Jose, or Juanito would be smiling, bare-chested and eager to please for most of the steamy jungle scenes. I'd be the one who would cross the Japanese lines and ask for tanks, air support, or more men. I'd miraculously make it back to the town where John Wayne is holding his position against the enemy with his Thompson machine-gun. As a reward, he'd rub that big white hand on my head and he'd promise to let me clean his Tommy gun by the end of the night. But then, a Betty Grable look-a-like love interest would divert him by sobbing into his shoulder, saying how awfully scared she is about what the "Japs" would do to her if she were captured. In one swift motion, John Wayne would sweep her off her feet to calm her fears inside his private quarters. Because of my Hollywood ability to be anywhere, I'd be under the bed watching the woman roll down her stockings as my American hero unbuckles his belt I'd feel the bottom of the bed bounce off my chest as small-arms fire explodes outside the walls.

It is Monday, I am twelve years old, summer still feel like summer to me... Ernest Green My elementary school principal was white I only had one white teacher, she was named after the juice the astronauts took into space, Tang, I got some Tang at home...did you hear about the little girls who got killed while we was in Sunday School yesterday? Elizabeth Eckford I live in Baltimore and so do you, your people the raw and stinky crew, my daddy a big shot on the Avenue your daddy can't buy a pair of shoes... Jefferson Thomas One little girl was named Addie Mae, just liek my aunt from South Carolina, and when I come home from church everybody was cryin about the news from Alabama...I know Alabama Alabama was on the math test today— If you going 65 miles an hour leaving Richmond near where my cousin live and you drive for twelve hours straight will get you to Alabama? hell no, cause Alabama in hell ... Terrance Roberts The bus is hot, the white neighborhood full of angry faces just two miles from where we live, angry faces I see at night when I look out the window and wonder why I have to sit next to white children to be smart...I was smart all the time, my mama told me so when I did things the right way, extra things, good things, smart is knowin when somethin's missing... Carlotta Walls LaNier I like Malcom X because he looks like me when I am so mad I can't stand myself, when my cousins take my model car shelf down, break up my cats and then dare me to fight, when I have to walk from the white school home through the white neighborhood when I miss the bus or when I get a beatin for what my friend did and he get a beatin, too, but mine hurt more because he did it, not me, so I like Malcom X. He so mean, Mr. Green, he so mean...you got to be mean in Chicago... Minnijean Brown When I was fourteen a boy kissed me when we were walking to the movies, he sneaked me, and I tried not to smile because kissing is a sin and all the while I was so full of hallelujah on the inside, on the way to the movies we go to now because somebody made a way somehow, standing in lines with protest signs, dogs barking all around, so I make sure I sound educated when Henry sneaks to kiss me on the way to the movies...we have all kinds of movies in Philadelphia... Gloria Ray Karlmark New York is faster than yesterday, been here and gone before you remember it ain't here no more, we go downtown in the middle of tomorrow when it still be today, New York is faster than yesterday, I got a quarter for your ten dollar bill, give it to me I'll pay your cleaners bill because New York is faster than yesterday, and a high school diploma is all a genius like me will ever need in a city where a thrill is more to me if you will believe me...and believe me you will... Thelma Mothershed What a word will do, my momma used to say at night when her work was done, rearing back in that chair of hers with the stuffin fallin out of the arms, what a word will do when you know what words are for, she would say, layin her head back, closing her eyes and settling down inside some dream. She never told us her dreams when we asked her, she just said we would know when the moon turned over three times and ghosts rose up out of the sea. Mama was half out of this world, in California we all the way in it... Melba Patillo Beals Little Rock Nine, Shaking the line Between white no And black oh yes, I'll walk all over What is mine, thanks To Little Rock Nine.

for Daniel “Chappie” James, General USAF and for the 332d Fighter Group Being black in America was the Original Catch, so no one was surprised by 22: The segregated airstrips, separate camps. They did the jobs they’d been trained to do. Black ground crews kept them in the air; black flight surgeons kept them alive; the whole Group removed their headgear when another pilot died. They were known by their names: “Ace” and “Lucky,” “Sky-hawk Johnny,” “Mr. Death.” And by their positions and planes. Red Leader to Yellow Wing-man, do you copy? If you could find a fresh egg you bought it and hid it in your dopp-kit or your boot until you could eat it alone. On the night before a mission you gave a buddy your hiding-places as solemnly as a man dictating his will. There’s a chocolate bar in my Bible; my whiskey bottle is inside my bedroll. In beat-up Flying Tigers that had seen action in Burma, they shot down three German jets. They were the only outfit in the American Air Corps to sink a destroyer with fighter planes. Fighter planes with names like “By Request.” Sometimes the radios didn’t even work. They called themselves “Hell from Heaven.” This Spookwaffe. My father’s old friends. It was always maximum effort: A whole squadron of brother-men raced across the tarmac and mounted their planes. My tent-mate was a guy named Starks. The funny thing about me and Starks was that my air mattress leaked, and Starks’ didn’t. Every time we went up, I gave my mattress to Starks and put his on my cot. One day we were strafing a train. Strafing’s bad news: you have to fly so low and slow you’re a pretty clear target. My other wing-man and I exhausted our ammunition and got out. I recognized Starks by his red tail and his rudder’s trim-tabs. He couldn’t pull up his nose. He dived into the train and bought the farm. I found his chocolate, three eggs, and a full fifth of his hoarded-up whiskey. I used his mattress for the rest of my tour. It still bothers me, sometimes: I was sleeping on his breath.

For Alma Banda Goddard my cynical feet ambled prepared for indigestion & blank faces of outrageous innocence knowing I'd have to walk over years of media declaring we're vanished or savage or pitiful or noble My toes twitched when I saw so few brown faces but really when one eats racism every time one goes out one’s door the appeal of talking about it is minuscule I sat with my back to the wall facing the door after I changed the chairs to a circle This doesn't really protect me but I con myself into believing it does One of the first speakers piped up I'm only here because my friend is Black & wanted me to do this with her I've already done 300 too many racism workshops Let it be entered into the Book of Stars that I did not kill her or shoot a scathing reply from the hip I let it pass because I could tell she was very interested in taking up all the space with herself & would do it if I said a word They all said something that I could turn into a poem but I got tired & went to sleep behind my interested eyes I've learned that the most important part of these tortures is for them to speak about racism at all Even showing up is heresy because as we all know racism is some vague thing that really doesn't exist or is only the skinheads on a bad day or isn't really a crucial problem not as important certainly as queers being able to marry or get insurance for each other When they turned to me as resident expert on the subject which quite honestly I can't for the life of me understand or make any sense out of I spoke from my feet things I didn't know I knew of our connections of the deadly poison that racism is for all of us Maybe some of them were touched but my bitch voice jumps in to say NOT MUCH! I heard back that someone thought I was brilliant Does that mean that I speak well Or that she was changed It's only her change I need

for j. byrd i am a man's head hunched in the road. i was chosen to speak by the members of my body. the arm as it pulled away pointed toward me, the hand opened once and was gone. why and why and why should i call a white man brother? who is the human in this place, the thing that is dragged or the dragger? what does my daughter say? the sun is a blister overhead. if i were alive i could not bear it. the townsfolk sing we shall overcome while hope bleeds slowly from my mouth into the dirt that covers us all. i am done with this dust. i am done.

When Richmond is finally        one of the world’s great capitals I will line the streets with apple trees

Into her mother’s bedroom to wash the ballooning body. “My mother is jelly-hearted and she has a brain of jelly: Sweet, quiver-soft, irrelevant. Not essential. Only a habit would cry if she should die. A pleasant sort of fool without the least iron. . . . Are you better, mother, do you think it will come today?” The stretched yellow rag that was Jessie Mitchell’s mother Reviewed her. Young, and so thin, and so straight. So straight! as if nothing could ever bend her. But poor men would bend her, and doing things with poor men, Being much in bed, and babies would bend her over, And the rest of things in life that were for poor women, Coming to them grinning and pretty with intent to bend and to kill. Comparisons shattered her heart, ate at her bulwarks: The shabby and the bright: she, almost hating her daughter, Crept into an old sly refuge: “Jessie’s black And her way will be black, and jerkier even than mine. Mine, in fact, because I was lovely, had flowers Tucked in the jerks, flowers were here and there. . . .” She revived for the moment settled and dried-up triumphs, Forced perfume into old petals, pulled up the droop, Refueled Triumphant long-exhaled breaths. Her exquisite yellow youth . . .