awaiting a divergence from America’s historic trajectory
Since this is two thousand and thirteen, the presumed racialized palimpsest wiped clean
because a darker countenance is projected from the rectory
“Racism’s not dead” and “Justice for Trayvon”
were the refrains issued forth from the steps
Of the imperial structures, representing Blind Justice
for the protesters denounced and they wept
All of sixteen hours, culminating two-days’ works-worth
was the time spent in sequestered deliberation
To mete out a fate, consequently a fete
from a jury pool symbolizing a virginal nation
Purporting to be a tribunal constituting one’s peer group
not from the victim’s for the voir dire was quite certain
For the blacks must stay back, and the brown remain down
only the light side of the defendant’s emits forth from behind the curtain
The social portiere that invariably separates
the varied life experiences of a disparate citizenry
Because the blacks are over here, and the whites are over there
it’s not fair, democratic, nor is it a mystery
For this chasm was forged in this nation’s inchoate offense
that determined the foreignness of the black and white person
Attributable to blacks have been the projection of facts
of despised latent white tendencies considered morally irksome
Wretchedness, maladies, crime-ridden dormancies
the irremediable sinfulness of a constitutive disorder
Slang, ghetto twang, considered baneful with tang
yet, are emulated within this nation’s cultural borders
“How does it feel to be a problem?” arising from that Du Boisian inquiry
essentially objective and perceptive simultaneous
Though the question remains ensuingly asked, yet the truth’s behind the mask
that divides the nation’s white and black, and the rest of us
For that “us” too must be fearful of hyper-extended acceptance
which appears facilely fashioned in demonstrative language
Albeit, the American is there, on the right side of the hypen
and the left reveals lands of origin and preternatural heritage
Captain Sum Ting Wong, and Wi Tu Low are not names
but merely cheap fabrications of racist caricatures
Just ask Ho Lee Fuk and interrogate Bang Ding Ow
how their personages are supposed to reveal real foreign prefectures
The fear is still there; my phenotype and physiognomy elicit it
though credentials and education should attenuate the reaction
When the unassuming woman on the street clutches her purse when I pass by
who’s been conditioned to consider me 3/5’s of a human—just a fraction
So, stereotypes rule the day and racism is institutionalized
because my residence, schooling, and vocation have been designed and fashioned
Yeah, the jury will deliberate but they sure won’t convict
for their pedagogic experience is devoid of one critically and culturally impassioned!