Defiant Alliance
Scratchboard/pastel,
16x20 depicting Black and White children allied in their defiance.
POEM- DEFIANT ALLIANCE
“White only”
A 400-year birthright
For simply being White
Yesterday’s overt
Is today’s covert
Amorphous aberration
Can’t see, touch or feel
Often thought not real
Everywhere but nowhere
This progeny of privilege
Fueling a caste system
Corrosive in its disparity
So systemically ingrained
Hopes for a change
No more than aspirational
When self-interests
Won’t be sacrificed
At the altar
Of the golden rule
“Do unto to others….”
But yield rather
To human nature’s rule
When even Don Quixote
Knows a “fool’s errand”
Is in a windmill’s whirlwind
Of “White privilege.”
“Colored only”
An artifact of history
Freedom’s thirst
Still not quenched
In air not free
From screams we hear
“I can’t breathe”
Ringing in the ear
An endless song of hope
In a yin/yang metaphor
No light without dark
No right without wrong
No evil of racism without
Good in those who oppose
Born of optimism
From a half empty glass
That is in fact half full
Of anti-racists who unite
Black, Brown and White
As history has shown
A struggle shared is owned
By all the abolitionists
Who insist to resist
With courage and sacrifice
That which is essential
Defiant alliance.
16x20 depicting Black and White children allied in their defiance.
POEM- DEFIANT ALLIANCE
“White only”
A 400-year birthright
For simply being White
Yesterday’s overt
Is today’s covert
Amorphous aberration
Can’t see, touch or feel
Often thought not real
Everywhere but nowhere
This progeny of privilege
Fueling a caste system
Corrosive in its disparity
So systemically ingrained
Hopes for a change
No more than aspirational
When self-interests
Won’t be sacrificed
At the altar
Of the golden rule
“Do unto to others….”
But yield rather
To human nature’s rule
When even Don Quixote
Knows a “fool’s errand”
Is in a windmill’s whirlwind
Of “White privilege.”
“Colored only”
An artifact of history
Freedom’s thirst
Still not quenched
In air not free
From screams we hear
“I can’t breathe”
Ringing in the ear
An endless song of hope
In a yin/yang metaphor
No light without dark
No right without wrong
No evil of racism without
Good in those who oppose
Born of optimism
From a half empty glass
That is in fact half full
Of anti-racists who unite
Black, Brown and White
As history has shown
A struggle shared is owned
By all the abolitionists
Who insist to resist
With courage and sacrifice
That which is essential
Defiant alliance.