TELL ME THE AMERICA WE WANTED NEVER EXISTED

by Dwain Wilder

Tell me about Jim Crow and I will read you chapters from "Huckleberry Finn."

Tell me about slavery and I will tell you about Harriet Tubman, John Fairfield, Levi Coffin and a host of hidden hands, and the Underground Railroad.

Tell me about overweening power and I will tell you about the likes of Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the Seneca Falls Convention, and Frederick Douglas.

Tell me about the worst of racism and I will tell you about a white man, John Brown, losing his life to spark a slave insurrection at Harper's Ferry.

Tell me about oppression and I will ring the rafters with Wendell Phillips,
"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty!
—power is ever stealing from the many to the few…"

Tell me the America we always wanted has never existed,
that people the world over, desperate for refuge
and yearning for it here
are but glamoured and I will show you a gift.

I will show you a present from another people’s dream of liberty,
a lady standing at a harbor raising a torch,
Holding a tablet inscribed with the day we called ourselves free;
at her feet, a few lines from a poem

and point out to you an endless procession of people who rely on her,
the gift of her,
rely on the torch,
rely on the tablet’s date, rely
on the fragment of the poem
and weep bitter gladness at first sight of the harbor.

The public anguish as our President and his henchmen
treat destitute people and their children like criminals,
little more than so much dirt,
for seeking asylum at our borders
—the existence of the America the humble of the world need
is proven by that anguish, its mass, its inevitability.

Your anguish. All it takes is yours. All of it.

Dwain Wilder is a Buddhist activist, editor of The Banner, an online weekly newsletter for grass roots activists working to get our country to acknowledge and respond to the current climate emergency. Dwain has taught meditation at Attica Prison, New York. He is a member of the Rochester poetry community, and builds stringed musical instruments for a living. He lives with his wife, their dog and cat, and a large rowdy macaw, in a quaint cottage beside a large dark forest.

READING WHILE BLACK

by Floyd Cheung

“. . . it remains unclear whether he was holding a gun or a book at the time he was shot.”  --Brian Flood for The Wrap, September 21, 2016


driving while black
            we know
reading while black
            also dangerous
how could it not be?
         
Narrative of the Life
            of Frederick Douglass
provides an account
            of resistance
with words and fists

Of Mice and Men
            a tale of friendship
dreams and desire
            in which euthanasia
is the best choice

I Know Why
            the Caged Bird Sings
why Maya becomes Mary
            why Maya
turns to poetry

Othello
            married to Desdemona
leader of an army
            betrayed by Iago
and himself

reading
            waiting
dreaming
            knowing
dangerous


Floyd Cheung has taught American literature at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, since 1999. His chapbook Jazz at Manzanar was published by Finishing Line Press in 2014.

HANDING DOWN TRADITIONS

by Rebecca Evans

Image source: Olde Colony Bakery

Olde Colony Bakery, “home of the original Charleston
benne wafer,” boasts a website where you can buy
benne wafers online. “Our 3oz Benne Wafer
Standup Pack is our medium-sized gift option!”
                    Early 18th century slaves brought benne seeds
                    from Africa to the Carolina sea islands,
                    cultivated them in hidden, forbidden gardens,
                    a staple food seed for rice cookery.
                    Their rice was the bread of life.

At Charleston City Market and Edisto Island
beautiful, costly sweetgrass baskets are sold.
“Our baskets bring African flair into your home!”
Works of art crafted by gifted black hands, a skill
handed down from Sierra Leone slave ancestors.
                    Large, flat, utilitarian marsh grass baskets were
                    coiled tight enough to hold water, fanners woven
                    by slaves to winnow the rice they harvested
                    on swampy, low country plantations.

Mother Emanuel church stands less than a mile
from the Old Slave Mart, where, around the corner
the old Huguenot Church honors my ancestor
on a bronze plaque, his dates, 1720 – 1774.
                    Rev. Francis Pelot, Baptist minister, was very rich,
                    owner of three islands, thousands of mainland
                    Carolina acres, plantations, “a great number
                    of slaves and stock in abundance.” Owned
                    a valuable library, devoted time to books.

What kind of wealthy master he was, we’ll never know,
A Baptist intimate friend deemed him “a worthy man,”
“in his family, a bright example of true piety.” But
Frederick Douglass writes that religious slaveholders
“are the worst,” describes the cruelty of an evangelical Methodist.
my ancestor in Maryland, the Rev. Rigby Hopkins
                    who boasted of his whipping slaves "with
                    what wonderful ease . . . to alarm their fears.
                    And yet there was not a man any where round . . .
                    that prayed earlier, later, louder
                    than this same reverend slave-driver."

When television broke the news from Charleston
last June, I joined the nation’s shocked mourners,
grieved the loss of the massacred nine, cut down
while heavenward bound in forgiving prayer, and
pitied the white boy dreaming a race war dream
to spread conflict sown by slaveholders like my ancestors
and handed down the line to sons, along with their slaves
and slave gifts of benne seeds and beautiful basketry.

Rebecca Evans, a retired journalist and editor who helped aspiring writers get published, has taken up poetry reading and writing and finds inspiration in Peggy Rozga’s class at UW-Waukesha. Rebecca now hosts a regular gathering of poet friends to share their writing at her dining table in Greenfield, Wisconsin.