Oh Dem!
The first line of the poem
Joseph Jarman wrote the summer of 1966
After a brick hurled at him over the fence.
Oh Democracy!
Railing against life in this country
For a Black jazz musician from Chicago
Attacked by the backward whites living next door.
Hearing Joseph read his poem
The pained depth of feeling in his voice
Words hitting back like the wail that came out
The wall of sound when he played his saxophone.
That day in Detroit seared into memory
I can see the lined paper in his hand
The cursive penciled sentences
And the angry bitter drawing of the flag.
***
I grew up in Greater Boston in the 1950’s
Where whites only was the rule for my neighborhood
Every student in every class I took
From kindergarten all the way through high school.
The first African American I remember seeing in person
The famous Althea Gibson competing at Longwood
Where my mother took me each year to watch tennis
Startled to hear her call out encouragement for Althea to
win.
I wonder now when my mother acquired that sympathy
And I think of her stories of army life in the WACs in WWII
Stationed in Montgomery, Alabama what she witnessed
And I surmise the injustice she saw there turned her.
As a boy listening on the radio to the World Series
I did not realize the meaning of her rooting for the Dodgers
For Jackie and Campy and Don Newcombe
Names I did not know but she did.
When she took us to the Jimmy Fund charity game
The Braves always romped over the all-white Red Sox
As I marveled to see Hank Aaron hit so many home runs
More magnificent even than Ted Williams.
That’s the way we were exposed to African Americans
Breaking the sports color barrier and entering our awareness
But still I had no clue about what it was like
Living under the rule of segregation.
***
I volunteered in high school in the Roxbury projects
Helping out with summer recreation
Where the children treated me as an exotic species
Touching my hair amazed at the Caucasian texture.
I watched the 1963 March on Washington on TV
Just beginning to absorb the meaning of the moment
Not realizing the prejudices of those around me
Until court-ordered school integration showed me.
Forced busing to better schools brought out the racists
Attacking the children on the buses in Boston
In the early 1970’s showing their true colors
No different than in the Deep South.
Whether busing across town to better schools is wanted
Or not, the choice belongs to the African American
community.
Either way, for me as a white person
The imperative is the same.
I am proud of my part in organizing a massive protest march
Bringing out thirty thousand people of all races
together
Chanting so loudly that cold December day in 1974
We say no! We say
no! We say no to racism!
The racist bus attacks stopped
The racist slurs reduced to whispers for the while
We won the day back then
But you wouldn’t know it any more.
***
The way I see things now
Every Trump supporter is a confirmed racist
Boldly gathering out in the open
Hateful against Black and Brown people.
The know nothing antipathy to Muslims
The vile insults denigrating women
The law and order police brutality allegiance
This man incites fascist mentality attacks.
These descendants of immigrants opposed to immigration
Talk as if America belongs to them alone
Not the remaining Native Americans who survived the genocide
Not the slaves who built the wealth of the ruling class.
Such a large proportion of white men
Having twisted ugly prejudice they think
It’s their right to discriminate and deny it
As I know too well being of them.
This is my country
Home to more than 200 years of slavery
More than 100 years of Jim Crow lynching
Today mass incarceration and shoot to kill.
***
Fifty years after that thrown brick in Detroit
Engaged me personally in the reality
The almost daily drumbeat of atrocities
Strains the limit of what people can endure.
The blood that spills onto the street
Black bodies innocent victims
Killer cops marauding death squads
What we see done with impunity.
The struggle to make Black Lives Matter
Inspires sports and entertainment figures
Daring to speak up and act out
Gaining support despite furious repression.
I was in Detroit in July, 1967 in the center city
To witness the great rebellion against police and poverty
When everyone joined in the taking and torching
Including the whites next door carting items home.
I know that class conscious unity is possible
I see the diverse demonstrators today
Something is happening here that gives hope
We can put an end to exploitation.
The times are heading to the final conflict
When each will stand in their place
To win actual liberty and justice for all
To bring peace and freedom to this land.
