Race and Culture

Race and Culture




Oh, first comes to mind a pedantic argument
about an Olympian race, Greek or by foot,
godly or man.
Literally, I guess race is a competition,
but I am a poor translator.
Whose first, better, best,
and worse, or worst,
whose the loser, the lost, the last?
Words are powerful and demeaning,
celestial orbits of stereotypes;
epithets and labels are just so easy.
Jokes, crude and witty, can still be on par
with the club to ostracize and obliterate
competition.
Race is an ornament for a country that came
to terms with a standard of laws for
slave owners and a Constitution
that declares all men created equal.
Hold on a minute.
What are we racing towards?
Conclusions about who-
you are, what-
you think, what-
can I get. Hearts racing like hummingbirds.
It is easier to judge than to know,
fear is more prevalent than respect,
but not more profound. The problem
with race is that there must be a first,
but then who really wins in a
dance of dunces?

Culture, not like the Petri dish,
grows in both hot and cold climates.
Sweltering, sunny, steamy climates, and
frozen, wind-blown, bring-in-all-the-firewood,
the water-in-the-toilet-is-ice
cold. Consumption is culture.
People is culture. You and me is
culture. For better or worse, Bill O’Reilly is
culture, a part of it, the decay, the labels,
the Petri dish. The deus ex machina, the surprise.
But what do I know.