OUR AMERICA

by Susana H. Case

I tried to explain the origins of blackface

to my bewildered Italian tutor,

who grew up in Perugia

and doesn’t read American

newspapers. I, too, had never seen blackface, 

growing up, but that was in New York City,

where burnt cork or grease 

would not have been thought funny, I hope.

Vaudeville, I think . . . I hesitated, 

or the earlier minstrel shows.

I was bewildered too. We shook our heads,

thinking of Italian companies 

that recently had to pull 

a Gucci balaclava sweater and Prada 

charms for purses,

blackface imagery on luxury.

Fat red lips on a black background

startled passersby on the East Side,

including me, who would never 

again enter their stores, both companies 

not having understood America, 

or having understood it too well.

Susana H. Case is the author of six books of poetry, most recently the erasure book, Erasure, Syria (Recto y Verso Editions, 2018). Her most recent book of traditional poetry, Drugstore Blue, was published in 2017. She is also the author of four chapbooks, two of which won poetry prizes. Her first collection, The Scottish Café, from Slapering Hol Press, was re-released in a dual-language English-Polish version, Kawiarnia Szkocka by Opole University Press in Poland. Her work has appeared in Calyx, The Cortland Review, Portland Review, Potomac Review, Rattle, RHINO and many other journals. 

WHEN I WAS A CHILD, I SPOKE LIKE A CHILD . . .

by Marsha Owens

When did he have an epiphany? she asked
unclear about how one is racist and then is not.

I know how life meanders, doesn’t march
in straight lines like VMI cadets stepping
around Stonewall Jackson’s horse, its body
stained with white and black blood before it
was stuffed and saluted, forever revered.

Her name was LaVinia, her body stout,
her words few, her work for my Mama—
clean toilets and stiffly pressed sheets,
her days long, two bus rides from Richmond
to the freshly coifed suburbs, all-white.

I didn’t know why LaVinia fixed sandwiches
for my brother and me but none for herself.

His name was Pete, lanky and dark, head bowed
to say, Mornin’ Ma’am to my Mama, Mornin’ Missy
to me, a five-year-old. His work for my Daddy—
boards nailed, shingles hauled up the ladder, laid
out just so—a few dollars at day’s end.

I didn’t know why Pete sat outside on the stoop
at lunchtime, eating his hot dog on a paper plate.

I swam in the culture into which I was born,
1950s, somewhere between slavery’s end
and the Act called Civil Rights.

I stumbled with other white people away
from horrible injustices and strode towards
desegregated neighborhoods, integrated schools,
JFK, MLK, Trayvon Martin, President Obama.

I listened and learned, read and reflected,
laughed and cried with new friends whose
memories were not mine, nor mine theirs.
No epiphany, just life. And I voted

“for the person who cares about all people,”
Daddy said in his old age, simplistic political
advice that had evolved over a lifetime
and became the politics I chose to follow.

Marsha Owens is a retired educator who still lives and writes in Richmond, VA. She voted for Ralph Northam and Mark Herring, not because they are perfect, but because their policies support "all people."

SONNET FOR GOVERNOR NORTHAM

by Diane Elayne Dees





I had to shine my shoes that day. I might
have inadvertently smeared polish on my face.
I don’t recall—but I’m more or less contrite
(for those who get all worked up about race).
I know that I’m a doctor of neurology,
but I have a lot of brain fog and confusion.
That photo in my yearbook’s an anomaly;
it may even be an optical illusion.
I may have donned a baptismal-like robe—
pure white (and perhaps it had a hood)—
and though I’m trying really hard to probe
my memory, it isn’t very good.
In summary, I’m the short guy. No—the tall!
But wait.....I think I wasn’t there at all.


Diane Elayne Dees’s poetry has been published in many journals and anthologies. Diane, who lives in Covington, Louisiana, also publishes Women Who Serve, a blog that covers women’s professional tennis throughout the world.

“STRANGE FRUIT” SINGS ON

by Renea McKenzie

Nia Wilson Had Big Plans. Then She Was Killed in a BART Station. —The New York Times, July 25, 2018

When I get up in the morning and see the news. When I get up in the morning and see the same, not-new news. The same horror. Again. Again. Again. Again. Again. God. WHERE IS JUSTICE? WHERE IS PEACE? How do we carry on. Make sense of the world. Speak light into darkness. When there are no words or strength left for already-been-said, tired-of-being-on-repeat disquisition

we need the steel, stone, wood, and fiber forms of those who create. Bridge to what ought to be. With gates made of mirrors. Help us to see. Look directly at reality we’d rather romanticize, rationalize, make up: blackface or whitewash.

We white-wash to hide. Same old shame-pride. We don’t know our own story. We don’t know. We don’t know we don’t know. We question the wrong things. Why do they still sing that same old song? Billie, Nina, Diana, Dee Dee, Jill. Sing on.

Will we learn to listen? Learn still. Like a seed that lies in blood-soaked ground. Dies to grow.

I hope. I hope.

I hope so.

Renea McKenzie holds an MLA in Literature from Dallas Baptist University and an MA in Humanities from the University of Texas at Dallas. A Texas native, Renea’s work often reflects the intersection of faith and protest and, somewhat similarly, the way north-Texas wildlife stubbornly adapts to the sprawling city.

BIOPIC

by Rae Leone Allen



Zoe Saldana faces criticism over dark makeup in Nina Simone film trailer. The actor’s casting as the legendary singer is in the spotlight again after the trailer and poster show a darkened skin tone and prosthetic nose. —The Guardian, March 2, 2016. The film is scheduled to open April 22.

                  
"Cause I see the face of things to come."

                                                          -Nina Simone, “Revolution” 1969

hollywood goddam.
blackfacing, caste
making muthafuckas.
consistent, blasphemous, boardroom,
behemoth muthafuckas. yall sholl got yall
ways. assaulting. can’t sing that blue black goddess no praise.

goddam: fatally, fundamentally flawed—blatantly missed
understanding. violence
in re-imagining.
herstory. hollywood, goddam. lifting
the leg, pissing. legacy dismissing. narrow lip-
servicing. herstory. them blackfacing,
castemaking, ofay muthafuckas want the glory. goddam,
zoe. a prosthetic nose.
really?

out of formation. chosen token
actress darkening. ignorance, arrogance
obscene. tweeting.

negro nostrils flarin’. pickaninny eyes rollin’. these muthafuckas
always stealin’. always a nigga lost, in the big
house. willin’. oh sinnin’ land: hollywood,
america: goddam. where
you gonna run to on that day,
blackfacing, castemaking muthafuckas?

not hearin. the word
she sang.
god

damned.

Rae Leone Allen is a child of Nina, Malcolm, Octavia, Jimmy and Audre living in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn.