Making us racist (from Confessions of a Racist)

I do not feel the whip in my hand

Or the rub of rope

I never even imagined either,

Yet they tell me I must pay

For crimes I didn’t commit

On people I never met

Because those people

Have the same color skin as me,

They like me ache to make

Our own decisions,

Make our own mistakes

Good or bad; rich or poor,

Though most who died in that fight

Never owned a whip

Let alone a black back to use it on,

Fighting blue coats not to keep slavery

But to keep some arrogant know it all

From telling them how to live their lives

Telling them what is right and wrong

When they need to

Decide that for themselves,

Knowing that rich are the same

North or south, only the north rich

Learned to hide the whip better

And let other people swing the rope,

Or pay for some poor immigrant

To die in a war that was never meant

To free slaves but to make rich richer,

And now, all these years later

Some new know it all,

Deluded by some new rich guy

Tells us we have to pay the bill

Calling us racist for clinging

To those few shreds dignity

Carpet baggers didn’t get,

Pushing people into becoming racists

The way those know it alls

Pushed people into a war

Nobody wanted to wage,

Hating us then and now

For refusing to kowtow,

To feel shame,

To pine our lives away

For something we never did,

And most of our ancestors never did either,

Painting us into a corner

So that the only way to fight back

The only way to survive with dignity

Is to become what they say we are,

Which is probably what they wanted

All along.