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Tuesday, May 12, 2009

BALLAD FOR SARAH PALIN'S BABYMOMMADRAMA

by Judy Juanita


before anybody
says one word of defense
for this sweet young pale pregnant
pretty girl, can we hear an official
disclaimer? goes like this:

we regret demonizing whole generations of young black unwed females [neither pale nor pretty by white ethnocentric standards.] we regret stereotyping them as immoral dregs on public welfare rolls. we apologize for not recognizing that sexuality is a human trait not a racial trait and that teen pregnancy happened in the "best of homes" back in the day as well, before we did away with welfare & forced mothers into minimum wage jobs two and three bus rides away from their little not-pale children [I believe you called them bastards but we invented better terms- babymomma, babydaddy- that I know all about because I’m a babydaddymomma] kids left all day to watch tv and play video games unsupervised--what we call the bootiful clinton legacy. that's why some very stoopid people mistook bill for a black prez.

but that's so 80s/90s.
let’s return to late 2008
when fair virgins of the
almost-no-longer-majority
race get impregnated mysteriously
and became upright political footballs.

let's let bygones be bygones and
remember the golden-white rule:
when people of color do it, it's evil;
when whites do it, it's a badge of honor.


Judy Juanita's poems have appeared in Crab Orchard Review, Obsidian II, Painted Bride Quarterly, LIPS, Paterson Review, Croton Review and 13th Moon. She is a playwright and teaches writing in Oakland, Calif.
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