The Blog

2022-

2022-04-06 b
MURDER MINSTREL SHOW II

Either we acknowledge the reality of rampant black criminality, degeneracy, impulsivity and multi-generational social pathologies or we wallow in white guilt like this trite poetess, waiting for the evening when a black thug mugs us

I can only be forgiven by Black people
for the million times I walked down a street
and no one knew I was there—
as if I were tiptoeing,
as if I took my self back from existence.
For the hundreds of times my mother and I
walked the galleries at Hudson’s—
not a dark soul to be found!—
the furniture behind red ropes, untouchable.
For all the places she and I
kept eating our sandwiches.
My mother liked minestrone soup
on the thirteenth floor where the white
waitresses wore dull green dresses & caps.
I always enjoyed a hot-fudge sundae.
Only Black people can judge me. Only they know
the anguish inserted in history when some
ancestor of mine took the place of one
who went to the back. What was done
made me. Only Black people can know—
who I loved most;
for whom I have done good.

A poem by Toi Derricotte. https://t.co/zpMFjJ0tVA

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