Lord Stirling Park October 2, 2016

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Manaticut Point October 1, 2016

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Oh Dem!

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.

Ringwood Manor September 29, 2016

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