Link the racist

The other day at the bookstore I was
startled by a black guy

he came around the bend
out of the quiet
and I jumped

I used to say,
I’m shy, I’m shy
with everyone. don’t
take my shyness for racism.
I clam up around all you people
I break eyes

On my friendly days,
boy am I friendly to every one

But the other day at the quiet bookstore
When I jumped

that was unacceptable

it was clear to me
what I’d done
who I really am.

I second guessed

Some are made racist by their parents

Some are made racist by the races themselves

None are born racist [a]

In fact, I do not even believe in the concept of
race. [b]
just as a theist believes in God
and a materialist believes in matter
and a dualist in duality
and a monist in unity
etc

A RACIST BELIEVES IN RACE.

I don’t believe in race and even if I did
I am a mix of so many.

So how can I be a racist?…

Then it happens again.
He rounds the corner and I jump.
He says--’Me again.’
I smile and he smiles.

I can think my way out.

but I jumped.

be afraid.

then

we do not know
exactly how much
the believers in race have taught us.



a- for example, a child born in the early seventies had to be taught about segregation and the holocaust and slavery and the inquisition etc.

b- a man may be more genetically similar to a member of a different ‘race’ than his own.

c- aside from a handful (7) alleles for skin color [out of 30,000 genes in the human genome], a handful (7) of branches in the mitochondrial DNA, and the similarities of Y genes for incestuous peoples, I’m not aware of any proof for the concept of race, that blood ugly hypothesis.

d- all of this will take generations to sink into the common sense of the family.