Semester I
American Perspectives: Texts of Importance
Name: __________________________________________________________Period: ___________
DO NOT LOSE THIS!!!
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Semester I
American Voices: Texts of Importance
Editors:
Johnston and Wescott-Sherman
ITC Publishing
Gresham, OR
2011
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Table of Contents
Annotation Rubric --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5
“Why high school must go: an interview with Leon Botstein” Robert Epstein ------------------------- 6
What does it mean to be an American? Kids’ Perspectives ----------------------------------------------- 12
“God Bless the USA” Lee Greenwood ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 14
“Panther Power” 2Pac -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 15
“FEAR” Raymond Carver --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 16
“I am America” Julie Redstone --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 17
“I Hear America Singing” Walt Whitman -------------------------------------------------------------------- 20
“Chinese Hot Pot” Wing Tek Lum ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 20
“Europe and America “ David Ignatow ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 21
“Immigrants” Pat Mora ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 21
“America” Ray Bradbury ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 21
“Drawing the Line” Lawson Fusado Inada ------------------------------------------------------------------- 22
“Of History and Hope” Miller Williams ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 23
“Let America Be America Again” Langston Hughes 1938 ---------------------------------------------- 24
“From an Atlas of the Difficult World” Adrienne Rich ----------------------------------------------------- 25
“Ellis Island” Joseph Bruchac ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 26
“Elena” Pat Mora -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 26
From “America and I” by Anzia Yezierska ------------------------------------------------------------------- 26
"Nikki-Rosa" Nikki Giovanni ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 27
“right on: white America” Sonja Sanchez-------------------------------------------------------------------- 27
“The Bridge Poem” Donna Kate Rushin ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 28
“Fuel” Ani Difranco ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 29
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“What Do Women Want?” Kim Addonizio ------------------------------------------------------------------- 30
“Until” Ayisha Knight --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 31
“What’s genocide?” Carlos Andrés Gómez 2007 --------------------------------------------------------- 32
“For the Confederate Dead” Kevin Young ------------------------------------------------------------------- 34
“Fortunate Son” Credence Clearwater Revival ------------------------------------------------------------- 35
“Coming to America” James Brown --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 36
“Pink Houses” John Cougar Mellencamp -------------------------------------------------------------------- 37
“Born in the U.S.A.” Bruce Springsteen ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 38
“American (Coming to America)” Neil Diamond ---------------------------------------------------------- 38
”Only In America” Brooks And Dunn ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 39
“War Pigs” Black Sabbath --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 39
“Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue” Toby Keith ------------------------------------------------------- 40
“America, [Heck] Yeah!” Trey Parker ------------------------------------------------------------------------- 41
Thinking Rhetorically “SOAPS Analysis” --------------------------------------------------------------------- 42
Notes: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 51
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Annotation Rubric
Noticing Reading Few or no marks to give
evidence of strategic or
thoughtful reader interaction
with the text. Vague
annotations. Teacher gains
little insight into student’s
reading process, what is
confusing, or how to help
student understand. For
example:
- Sparse underlining with no
written comments
- Whole paragraphs
highlighted with no
indication of important
ideas connected to those
sections or questions about
those sections
! Marks limited to a single
type of interaction, such as
underlining unfamiliar
words Focusing on Reading Taking Control of
Reading Marking indicates some
reader interaction with the
text. Marks give some insight
into student comprehension.
Teacher gains some insight
into how the student
approached the text -- where
the student understood and
where the student was
confused. For example:
Marking indicates substantial
reader-text interactions
focused on problem solving
and building understanding.
Teacher gains important and
substantial insight into the
student’s process and how
he/she approached the text.
For example:
- Variety of marks for varying
- Some limited strategic
purposes, such as
marks focused on one or
highlights, circles,
more strategies, such as
underlines, stars. Reader
making connections, asking
provides a key or type of
questions
annotation is clearly
- Comments in margins are
evident.
generalized responses, such - Strategic marking of main
as “boring”, “cool”, “me
ideas, text signals, devices
too”, “wow”
! Purposeful comments
! Comments and marks
clarify, ask, and answer
identify specific problems
questions. Comments make
such as “what?” connected
connections and
to a highlighted section summarize. C:\Users\johnston\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet
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“Why high school must go: an interview with Leon Botstein” Robert Epstein
Phi Delta Kappan May 2007
Does our culture protect teens from themselves, or does it create the very irresponsibility we are
trying to protect them from? Mr. Epstein believes the latter and so decided to have a conversation
with someone who has been saying that for years, Leon Botstein.
*****
WHENEVER THERE'S a new school shooting, journalists looking for experts dust off their copies
of a book called Jefferson's Children: Education and the Promise of American Culture, by Leon
Botstein, longtime president of Bard College and music director and conductor of the American
and Jerusalem symphony orchestras. Published in 1997 and thus predating the tragedies at
Jonesboro, Arkansas, and Littleton, Colorado, this rambling collection of occasional lectures
seems to help explain the carnage.
Botstein's views on teens are far from the mainstream. The public believes that the teen
years are necessarily a time of "storm and stress"--a perspective etched into the American
consciousness in 1904 by psychologist G. Stanley Hall in a book that defined, and perhaps even
invented, modern adolescence. Teens, most people would insist, are inherently incompetent and
irresponsible, desperately in need of protection and indoctrination. That's why part-time
cashiering is practically the only work we let them do, and that's why we force them to attend
school even if they're not ready to learn. That's also why we don't let them sign contracts, own
property, start businesses, marry, drink alcohol, or smoke cigarettes--or, in some states, visit malls
without chaperones, get tattoos without parental permission, use cell phones while driving, or
even enter tanning salons without a physician's prescription.
But Botstein says that teens are as capable as adults in many respects and that they are
certainly capable of learning important and interesting things--as opposed to all that "crap" we
learned in high school (to borrow singer Paul Simon's word, not Botstein's). High school should,
in fact, Botstein says, be abolished. It demeans our young, wastes their time, traps them in the
vacuous world of teen culture, turns them off to learning, and isolates them from and makes them
hostile toward the very people they're about to become: adults.
Botstein knows whereof he speaks. The youngest college president in American history
(Franconia College, age 23), he's a living reminder of the extraordinary capabilities of young
people, and Bard College has further proved the point by recently creating a thriving college for
high school-age teens in New York City, as well as by taking over and running another successful
college for teens, Simon's Rock College in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.
Jefferson's Children came to my attention in connection with survey research I was
conducting with a doctoral student, Diane Dumas. We developed a wide-ranging test of adult
competencies and compared the scores of adults and teens. To the surprise of many, there was
little or no difference. Other research shows that teens are actually far superior to adults in some
areas: memory, reasoning ability, reaction time, and sensory abilities, in particular. What's more,
in countries where teens are integrated into adult society at an early age, there is no sign
whatsoever of teen turmoil. Could it be, as Botstein suggested, that our culture was creating the
horrendous problems of American teens--the high rates of depression, suicide, crime, drug abuse,
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and pregnancy--by infantilizing them? I eventually began working on a book, The Case Against
Adolescence: Rediscovering the Adult in Every Teen, summarizing the relevant psychological,
historical, biological, and multicultural evidence to support this idea.
Unfortunately, Botstein's perspective garners media attention mainly while the blood is still
wet, and it's almost never considered as part of the solution. Once a crisis is over, the view that
teens are needy children prevails, and the typical response is not to reconnect teens with adults,
or to give them more responsibility, or to treat them with greater respect, but rather to place more
powerful metal detectors in the high school doorways and more video cameras in the hallways
and bathrooms--in other words, to infantilize teens even more.
Somehow, Botstein remains optimistic about our ability to see teens in a more realistic and
constructive light. Here are his current views about teens and high schools in America.
THE INTERVIEW:
Epstein: Where did Jefferson's Children come from?
Botstein: One of the unattractive requirements of being a college president is that you have to say
something in public and presumably about education. You end up developing unvarnished
opinions without knowing much about a wide range of subjects, and usually those opinions are
relatively bland. In my case, having been a college president for a long time and having been
asked to say what I think about a variety of issues that I know nothing about, I ended up giving a
variety of talks, and an enterprising editor heard one of these and approached me about putting
all my unvarnished prejudices on the subject of education into one volume. But the book fell flat
until the shootings at Columbine. Then the press began to look for people who had something to
say about the Columbine event but who hadn't waited to say it until after the fact. After the
shooting, everybody had an opinion. As my father, who was a great physician, used to say, the
most important medical instrument is the "retro-spectroscope." But some journalists wanted more
predictive wisdom.
Epstein: What did your book say that was so relevant to the Columbine shooting?
Botstein: There's a chapter, which argues for the abolition of the high school and argues that the
high school is an infantilizing structure. I wrote that we hadn't paid attention to adolescents
properly as young adults and that we fail miserably when puberty meets education; we fail to
nurture young people when they have the greatest capacity to learn. As a result, we fail to
produce people with any real ambition to learn. College is too late, and the arrogance of college
educators is unbelievable. Having criticized the high school environment as a way we treat
adolescents, the book seemed to overlap with some of the observations about the Columbine
event. A journalist asked to interview me about this, and then I did a couple of op-ed pieces for
leading newspapers. Then Oprah Winfrey got wind of this, and the book suddenly had a magical
revival from the moribund.
Epstein: I understand that officials in New York took your ideas about teens quite seriously. What
happened?
Botstein: The mayor of New York and then the governor of the state supported the idea of our
creating an early college in the public sector, which would take young people out of the eighth
grade and give them a real college education. By the time they finished the year that they would
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normally have received a high school diploma, they would have finished an AA degree. So we
developed the Bard High School Early College, which is a public school on the Lower East Side
of New York that mirrors the demography of the city. It's a fantastic success, and it proves the
point. The Gates Foundation has now jumped in behind it and has put about $40 million into
trying to replicate versions of this early college idea.
Epstein: In Chapter 3 of Jefferson's Children, you say, quite simply, that "the American high
school is obsolete." What is the basis for this idea?
Botstein: There are two types of warriors: those trained at West Point and Annapolis, who know
about war mainly by studying it, and those of us who rise through the ranks by having fought a
lot of wars in the trenches. I discovered this idea through years of observing entering first-year
college students--from observing what they thought education was, what they thought reading
was, and what they thought interpretation was. Choose your poison. That, and the huge disparity
between what they wanted to do or were motivated to do and what they were actually capable of
doing. They were sexually active, they appeared to be adults, and they had mannerisms of
adulthood, but they were horrifically at odds with their own adulthood when it came to the use of
their minds. And this disparity cut across lines of race and class.
Epstein: But why did you notice these disparities when virtually no other prominent educators
have expressed concern about them?
Botstein: When people go into a profession, they become socialized, and their training is
internalized; it's self-replicating. If you become a teacher or an educational administrator, you are
trained to adopt the norms, and you are rewarded to the extent to which you vindicate those
norms. I have always been an outsider. I was never trained in those norms. And so I looked at the
high school with a kind of shockingly simple-minded common sense.
Take curiosity. Every parent knows that a child wants to know things about the natural world.
They're not worried about who Thomas Jefferson was. They're worried about why the sun rises,
why it snows, why the stars glitter in the sky. Every child wants to know. Their most important
question is why. But our worst pursuit in schooling is the teaching of science, even though it
should be our most popular subject. This has to be because of the way science is institutionalized
and transmitted. There isn't something in our development that shuts off our curiosity about the
natural universe.
Epstein: You have 24 maxims in Jefferson's Children, one for each hour of the day. I find one of
them particularly interesting. It is to "reflect on the exercise of authority." What does this mean?
Botstein: It's advice to parents, and it extends to school administrators as well. Authority is terribly
important. Everybody wants to feel that they're in charge of their own lives. But if you observe
patrons in a restaurant, you find that people like restaurants in part because they can order
somebody around. Some people send the wine back; some people are upset about the service.
Ask anyone who works for an airline or in the service professions, where someone has paid for
the right to be the boss. Many, many people revel in being the boss. Parenting is often motivated
by such desires. Some people have children in order to create pets whom they can order around.
Authority is legitimate when you're causing something to be done that is essential. Sometimes
people--teachers, for example--exercise legitimate authority simply by knowing something. But
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the base of authority should be as transparent as possible, and students, and even young
children, should be able to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate authority. Sometimes
the best thing you can do for a child is to tell the child you don't know something--to tell the child
that you yourself are self-critical and that you don't wield authority arbitrarily. So if my son asks
me a question and I don't know the answer, I say, "I really don't know. I've got to find out." He
observes that I'm uncomfortable with not being able to answer his question, and I try to figure out
the answer.
Epstein: You're talking about creating a kind of connection between adults and young people that
is pretty rare these days. You're talking about creating a much more substantive type of
connection.
Botstein: Yes, much more substantive. One of the reasons adults don't like adolescents--why
adults are so hostile and seek to restrict adolescents so much--is that they are envious. We define
adulthood in a way that is not actually true. We say adulthood is all about circumspection and
self-denial and responsibility--all high-minded moral talk. It's not the way we actually behave, and
in that sense we hold teens to impossible standards.
But one of the things that we do know--one area where we can truly help young people--is to
teach them not to dissipate an enormously important part of their lives. This is the ideal time for
them to learn, to shape their interests, to develop self-confidence and characteristics which we
may not have developed adequately ourselves. Unfortunately, because we secretly envy
adolescents, many of us--even educators--react terribly toward teens without realizing what we're
doing. I'm always struck when I see how little entering college students appreciate the joy of their
own youth--probably because of the way they've been treated by adults.
Epstein: Perhaps teens have no point of comparison. They know nothing about adulthood, after
all. They've been completely isolated from it, and everything they've learned, they've learned from
peers--probably the last people on Earth from whom they should be learning.
Botstein: Exactly right. This is the problem of age segregation. I'm strongly opposed to the
institutionalization and segregation of young people, which is much worse now because we don't
have extended families living together at home anymore. We don't introduce our children early
enough to the real criteria by which life is measured, and we allow them to develop hothouse
criteria of their own that turn out to be totally irrelevant in life. We don't teach them that the real
rules of life are not the rules of Hollywood, not the rules of pop culture, and not the rules of high
school. And we certainly don't teach them to develop their mental faculties.
Epstein: You mentioned the early college program that you've established with the city of New
York, and since 1979 Bard has also run Simon's Rock College in Massachusetts, which is a
college program for young people. What happens when you provide higher education for young
people? Does it work?
Botstein: Yes, quite well. We made our share of mistakes, particularly during the early years of
Simon's Rock, but we've learned a great deal. We've learned that young people--ages 14 and 15-are capable of an enormous amount of absorption of and response to serious information.
They're ready to be taught serious science, serious mathematics, serious history, serious reading,
as well as philosophy, literature, foreign languages, and mathematics.
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And it's not only the gifted. It's hypocritical, in my view, to reserve such experiences for the elite.
Adulthood has the potential to begin much earlier than we think, and it cuts across everyone, not
just those we call gifted. The young people who drop out of the inner-city schools are doing the
right thing because there's nothing there for them to learn, and the curriculum that is mandated
by the state is ridiculous and trivial in terms of what a young person can do. We've learned that
people right in the middle of the proverbial bell-shaped curve respond very well to college
material, and their expectations and performance rates change beyond predicted patterns--if
they're treated properly. However, we also learned that you need a new kind of teacher, a kind of
cross between the college teacher and the high school teacher. The college teacher brings real
love of subject and real competence in the subject area and membership in a community that's
defined by liking to do certain things.
Epstein: But perhaps not competence in teaching?
Botstein: Yes, teaching is not necessarily where they excel; they may like teaching, but only
because they like the subject and they're active in their subject area. High school teachers, on the
other hand, tend to enjoy both teaching and teens. Consequently, you can't simply throw young
people into what we now know as college. You have to create a different kind of environment in
which you combine the best of college, which is intellectual ambition and competence, with a
willingness to spend time with young people and deal with the age group with the kind of
attention and caring that's sometimes characteristic of high school teachers.
Epstein: Can we really abolish the American high school?
Botstein: Absolutely. In fact, there's a tremendous upward pressure from below to do so, from
both ends of the spectrum of students. Good students who are college-bound are restless and
bored, and there's a huge dropout rate at the bottom end--the people who are least well served.
We don't have a clue how to deal with them, and they can't wait to get out of the system that
doesn't serve them. And they're right.
Epstein: There are more than half a million dropouts a year right now, and in some minority
groups in major cities, the dropout rate is about 50%.
Botstein: Because the system is broken. No one would keep a fleet flying if half of the planes
crashed. So, the country is derelict, the President is derelict, his predecessor Mr. Clinton was
derelict, the Congress is derelict, the state legislators are derelict, and the education establishment
is routinely committing a kind of crime.
The solution is simple, and it's a solution which should appeal to both the conservative and the
liberal. The conservative will like that fact that you can get more done in fewer years with less
cost, and the liberal will like the fact that young people will have fewer problems and more
opportunities. We need a compulsory education system from K through 10, with two levels,
elementary and secondary; we can get rid of the middle school entirely. The middle school is
nothing but a reflection of the American puritanical discomfort with early puberty. We wanted to
separate the early adolescents from the children and the grown adolescents. So we created the
middle school, which is to me an idiotic notion. It's idiotic because, again, it increases age
segregation. Younger and older role models are absent. We need a two-level system that ends in
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the 10th grade, after which we can offer a variety of interesting options: work, national service,
education in specialty areas, and, of course, college.
To make this happen, colleges will have to adapt. The real resistance to making this practical is
not the high school or the legislature or the public; the public can be sold on the idea. Real
resistance will come from the colleges. It's disappointing how few colleges have stepped up to take
over the responsibility for secondary education, which is in their interest, actually. And the reason
is that college faculty members have gotten used to having no responsibility for the well-being of
students.
Epstein: Is there hope for our colleges?
Botstein: The quality of teaching in undergraduate colleges--universities particularly--is not high.
We've created a kind of sink-or-swim situation where faculty members are much more concerned
about their professional status and their graduate students than about undergraduates. We have a
bizarre hierarchy in our education system by which the most rewarded person ends up at the
Institute for Advanced Studies and doesn't have to do any teaching at all. In my view, that is the
undoing of real scholarship.
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What does it mean to be an American?
Kids’ Perspectives
“To be an American to me means that I am free. That when I grow up I can pick the job I want,
what shift to work. And to have a good education. It means that I can say “The Pledge of
Allegiance” and that I can vote for the President, my county clerk, and the Mayor. But to me it
means most of all to be free and to be proud that I live in the United States of America here in
Wisconsin.”
Ashley M., 10, Wisconsin
“It means that you are free. It also means you can vote for who you want to.”
Hannah K., 10, Wisconsin
“It is great to be an American. We get to play sports and eat lots of food. We get lots of toys.”
Austin B., 11, Wisconsin
“Being an American is about being free and loyal. It’s about having freedom of religion, rights,
and justice. It’s also about being about yourself.”
Sarah K., 10, Wisconsin
“I think being an American is a big responsibility.”
Neil C., 10, Wisconsin
“Being an American means that we are all treated equally no matter what color skin you have,
and it doesn’t matter what culture you are from. If you are an American you are mighty lucky
because you will be free forever.”
Cody S., 10, Wisconsin
“To be an American means you have the right and freedom to do what you want. It is great to be
an American.”
Whitley S., 11, Alabama
“To be an American is great, because I have freedom of speech; I can go to school to get an
education; I have a great family; and you can go where- ever you want to.”
Ciara W., 10, Alabama
“It means being special. Everyone is different and has a different personality. So you can be
Italian, Mexican, or Irish, and still be an American. So be yourself.”
Rachel P., 10, Alabama
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“I love AMERICA because I have so many rights!! I love having freedom of speech, the freedom
of voting, and the freedom of being your own individual. I love being able to have your own
religious beliefs. I like that we have a democracy. I love being an American for these reasons and
more!!!!!!!!!!!”
Krista G., 10, Alabama
“I think that it means to support your community by doing things for it. You could join a trash
pickup. You could donate money to the Red Cross, Salvation Army, and many other things. You
could join Boy Scouts/Cub Scouts and do things with them. But the most important thing is to
allow freedom, meaning that people should allow other cultures and religions to be with your own
culture.”
Eugene D., 10, Alabama
“Being an American to me means many things like being able to speak your mind; attend the
church you want to attend; celebrate the holidays you want to celebrate; and be a slave to no
one. September 11 has proved that all the above are true here in America, and we should all be
very thankful to be Americans. Peace!”
Sarai B., 11, Oregon
“To be an American means more than good restaurants, burgers, fries, and chicken nuggets. It
means to have faith and to have trust in every American around you. It doesn’t matter what color
you are. You are an American. It doesn’t matter what you wear. What it means to be an
American is more than what you think...because I will live my life ...my way. GOD BLESS THE
U.S.!”
Nilam V., 10, South Carolina
“To be an American. Many take this phrase too lightly others, too strict. Being an American does
not mean that you go to baseball games and eat hot dogs, but to live your life out to the fullest,
not just waving around a flag every day. Being an American is to help another, whether it be
Polish or Chinese or Afghan or Muslim. Being an American means helping your sworn enemy,
even if you do not wish, but you shall help with dignity and pride. Being American means that
you capture the true essence of every being, from the simplest little flower to the most-beautiful
person in the world. Being American means to be united as one, under whatever deity you
worship, and to be able to depend, rely, and give hope to each other. Because being American
does not just mean living in America, every person has a part of being an American in them,
deep inside, embedded, until they wish to release that piece, and share it with the world. That is
what a true American is.”
Jonathan B., 12, Hawaii
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“God Bless the USA” Lee Greenwood
You've Got A Good Love Comin', 1984
If tomorrow all the things were gone,
I’d worked for all my life.
And I had to start again,
with just my children and my wife.
I’d thank my lucky stars,
to be livin here today.
‘Cause the flag still stands for freedom,
and they can’t take that away.
And I’m proud to be an American,
where at least I know I’m free.
And I wont forget the men who died,
who gave that right to me.
And I gladly stand up,
next to you and defend her still today.
‘Cause there ain’t no doubt I love this land,
God bless the USA.
From the lakes of Minnesota,
to the hills of Tennessee.
Across the plains of Texas,
From sea to shining sea.
From Detroit down to Houston,
and New York to L.A.
Well there's pride in every American heart,
and its time we stand and say.
That I’m proud to be an American,
where at least I know I’m free.
And I wont forget the men who died,
who gave that right to me.
And I gladly stand up,
next to you and defend her still today.
‘Cause there ain’t no doubt I love this land,
God bless the USA.
And I’m proud to be and American,
where at least I know I’m free.
And I wont forget the men who died,
who gave that right to me.
And I gladly stand up,
next to you and defend her still today.
‘Cause there ain’t no doubt I love this land,
God bless the USA.
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“Panther Power”
2Pac
Tupac: Resurrection, 2003
Tupac:
As real as it seems the american dream
Aint nuthin but anotha calculated scheme
To keep us locked up and shot up and back in
chains
To deny us our future rob our name
Kept our history a mystery but now I see
The american dream wasnt meant for me
cause lady libertys a hypocrite she lied to me
Promised freedom education and ecuality
Never gave be nuthin but slavery
But now look at how dangerous you made me
Callin me a man cause Im strong and bold
With this gumbo of knowledge of the lies you
told
Promised me emancipation and a free nation
All you ever gave my people was starvation
The father of our country never cared for me
They kept our ancestors shacked up in slavery
Uncle sam neva did a damm thing for me
Exept lie about the facts in my history
Now Im sittin here mad cause Im unemployed
But the government mad cause they enjoy
When my people are down they just screw us
around
Time to change the government now
Panther power
Ray:
Panther powr from the place that resides within
Go to for to with a panther and you just cant win
Self proclaimed best supress the rest
The rich get richer and the poor take less
The american dream was the american
nightmare
You kept my people down and refused to fight
fair
The ku klux klan tried to keep us out
With signs that state no blacks allowed
With intimidation and segregation
Once would wait for our freedom
But now were impatient
Blacks they others they yell sell out
Freedom equality get out yell out
Dont eva be ashamed of what you are
Its your panther power that makes you a star
Panther power
Tupac:
My mother neva let me forget my history
Hopin that I would set free cahins that were put
on me
Wanted to be more than just free
Had to know tha true facts about my history
I couldnt settle for bein a statistic
Couldnt survive in this capitalistic government
cause it was meant to hold us back with
ignorance
Drugs and sneak attacks in my community
They killed our unity
But when I charged them they cried immunity
I strike america like a case of heart disease
Panther power is runnin through my arteries
Try to stop me homeboy youll get clawed to
death
cause Ill be fightin for my freedom till my dyin
breath
Ray:
Do you remember thats what Im askin you
You think youre livin free dont make me laugh at
you
Open your eyes realise youve been locked in
chains
Said you wasnt civilized and stole your name
cause some time has passed we seem to all firget
Theres no liberty for me and you we aint free yet
Panther power
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“FEAR” Raymond Carver
Fear of seeing a police car pull into the drive.
Fear of falling asleep at night.
Fear of not falling asleep.
Fear of the past rising up.
Fear of the present taking flight.
Fear of the telephone that rings in the dead of night.
Fear of electrical storms.
Fear of the cleaning woman who has a spot on her cheek!
Fear of dogs I've been told won't bite.
Fear of anxiety!
Fear of having to identify the body of a dead friend.
Fear of running out of money.
Fear of having too much, though people will not believe this.
Fear of psychological profiles.
Fear of being late and fear of arriving before anyone else.
Fear of my children's handwriting on envelopes.
Fear they'll die before I do, and I'll feel guilty.
Fear of having to live with my mother in her old age, and mine.
Fear of confusion.
Fear this day will end on an unhappy note.
Fear of waking up to find you gone.
Fear of not loving and fear of not loving enough.
Fear that what I love will prove lethal to those I love.
Fear of death.
Fear of living too long.
Fear of death.
I've said that.
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“I am America” Julie Redstone
I am America.
I am blueberry muffins and eggs-over-easy in silverfoil diners
with blue neon signs and newspapers out front,
where the regulars come to fill up on warmth and
the ever-present feeling of family,
I am picnic baskets made of straw, and tall grass with milkweed,
worn blankets to sit on, and the smell of new mown hay
drifting past from a farm nearby,
I am playgrounds with rusty swings and ancient maple trees,
and water fountains with bubbly spouts
that little children gleefully reach toward
as they try to catch the moving water with their tongues,
I am fourth-of-July parades, and lawn chairs, and iced tea on the front porch,
and the smell of chicken roasting in the oven,
and friends coming over for coffee and fresh-baked pie and a little talk,
I am polka festivals and Saturday-night dancing
with Hank Tomarr and the Harmonics,
and clean white shirts at Sunday church,
and innocence, not arrogance,
I am rolling hills, and dirty streets, and windswept plains,
and airless apartments in cities that are always lit,
whose elegance lies in ancient fire escapes
that are havens in the summer heat,
I am chlorine-blue city pools, and laughter of children,
and washrooms that smell of disinfectant,
and young mothers with the eyes of eagles watching their young,
I am the suffering of the lonely, of the hungry, of the dreamless
who live without hope, and who hope only to escape
from the dreamlessness,
I am the icons of the fast-food world – hamburgers and cokes,
pizza and buffalo wings, french fries and happy meals,
I am speed of life wanting more and more speed,
striving for more and more doing,
no time to sit, no time to listen, no time,
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And I am lazy days of going nowhere, of wondering what it all means,
of waking up, for a moment, beyond the things I do,
into a wondering of who I am.
I am freedom. I am possibility. I am golden opportunity
knocking at the door at every moment,
And I am also the closed and silent door for the many who strive
to hear the sound of opportunity but cannot,
I am prayer and I am gratitude – to that which watches over freedom
and creates endless possibility – to the Source of life itself.
I am America.
I am strong, I am proud, I am weak, I am vain,
I am childlike, I am brash, I am plainspoken, I am noble,
I am wise, I am foolish, I am young, I am ancient,
I am the flame of endless possibility –
the golden promise of an open-ended Life.
II.
I am America.
I am aging vinyl curtains that frame the voting booths
in tree-lined towns in Mississipi, Missouri, Delaware and New Jersey,
the curtained booths that contain the seeds of democracy
given new life with every pull to close them,
I am ten thousand newspapers with glaring headlines
and pictures of those involved in the latest scandal
that unbridled power creates,
the latest corruption, the latest unthinking act of indifference,
I am the stories of violence heaped on violence, heaped on violence,
the latest murder, the latest tragic loss of life, the latest act of despair,
I am the victims of anger, of forgetfulness, of spiritual eclipse,
and the perpetrators as well,
I am their expression, and I am their healing,
I am America.
I am the flags waving in front yards or hung in trees
beside worn clapboard houses,
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Their red, white, and blue proudly displayed,
even when nothing else of the house stands out with pride,
I am tunes on the radio that come in long drinks –
the twang of strings and guitar singing the seasons of the heart,
the soulful landscape of love and loss,
of hope and betrayal, of life and death,
I am the reflection within all of the poignant and tender search
for grace and redemption,
the goal of the promised land, the land of ease, the promise of peace.
I am America.
I am the land of plenty,
I am pancakes in the morning with syrup running across warm plates,
and raspberries in winter,
and oranges and apples shipped from around the world,
and big cars, and closets full of clothing,
and stores bulging with more than anyone has a right to desire,
I am also the land of poverty,
where children go hungry amidst the plenty,
where the silent cry of despair hovers over families
that cannot make ends meet,
who suffer even more to see all that others throw away,
I am one nation but live as two, with part of me invisible to the rest,
obscured by a shroud of denial –
the denial of a heart that fears to lose what it has gained
so that others may have,
I am America.
I am rich, I am poor. I am noble, I am callous.
I am inspired, I am numb. I am generous, I am selfish.
I am, in the end, growing, as a child grows, as a tree grows,
as the world grows, out of what has been into what will be,
Becoming the light and form of my destiny.
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“I Hear America Singing” Walt Whitman
From Poems of Walt Whitman 1868
I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear;
Those of mechanics--each one singing his, as it should be, blithe and strong;
The carpenter singing his, as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his, as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work;
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat--the deckhand singing on the steamboat
deck;
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench--the hatter singing as he stands;
The wood-cutter's song--the ploughboy's, on his way in the morning,
or at the noon intermission, or at sundown;
The delicious singing of the mother--or of the young wife at work--or of the girl sewing or
washing--Each singing what belongs to her, and to none else;
The day what belongs to the day--At night, the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing, with open mouths, their strong melodious songs.
“Chinese Hot Pot”
Wing Tek Lum
My dream of America
Is like da bin louh*
with people of all persuasions and tastes
sitting down around a common pot
chopsticks and basket scoops here and there
some cooking squid and others beef
some tofu or watercress
all in one broth
like a stew that really isn’t
as each one chooses what he wishes to eat
only that the pot and fire are shared
along with the good company
and the sweet soup
spooned out at the end of the meal.
*Vietnamese word for Chinese hot pot, a broiling pot of broth in which people cook meat, fish,
poultry, and vegetables.
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“Europe and America “ David Ignatow
“America” Ray Bradbury
My father brought the emigrant bundle
of desperation and worn threads,
that in anxiety as he stumbles
tumble out distractedly;
while I am bedded upon soft green money
that grows like grass.
Thus, between my father
who lives on a bed of anguish for his daily
bread,
and I who tear money at leisure by the roots,
where I lie in sun or shade,
a vast continent of breezes, storms to him,
shadows, darkness to him, small lakes, rough
channels
to him, and hills, mountains to him, lie
between us.
We are the dream that other people dream.
The land where other people land
When late at night
They think on flight
And, flying, here arrive
Where we fools dumbly thrive ourselves.
Refuse to see
We be what all the world would like to be.
Because we hive within this scheme
The obvious dream is blind to us.
We do not mind the miracle we are,
So stop our mouths with curses.
While all the world rehearses
Coming here to stay.
We busily make plans to go away.
How dumb! newcomers cry, arrived from
Chad.
You're mad! Iraqis shout,
We'd sell our souls if we could be you.
How come you cannot see the way we see
you?
You tread a freedom forest as you please.
But, damn! you miss the forest for the trees.
Ten thousand wanderers a week
Engulf your shore,
You wonder what their shouting's for,
And why so glad?
Run warm those souls: America is bad?
Sit down, stare in their faces, see!
You be the hoped-for thing a hopeless world
would be.
In tides of immigrants that this year flow
You still remain the beckoning hearth they'd
know.
In midnight beds with blueprint, plan and
scheme
You are the dream that other people dream.
My father comes of a small hell
where bread and man have been kneaded and
baked together.
You have heard the scream as the knife fell;
while I have slept
as guns pounded offshore.
“Immigrants” Pat Mora
wrap their babies in the American flag
feed them mashed hot dogs and apple pie,
name them Bill and Daisy,
buy them blonde dolls that blink blue
eyes or a football and tiny cleats
speak to them in thick English,
hallo, babee, hallo,
whisper in Spanish or Polish
when the babies sleep, whisper
in the dark parent bed, that dark
parent fear, “Will they like
our boy, our girl, our fine american
boy, our fine american girl?”
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“Drawing the Line”
Lawson Fusado Inada
All I wanted !
Was a place to live,
How we had always known,!
Women among huckleberries, !
Tules that teach !
Children of junipers, geese and sky.! !
All I wanted !
Was to fight to live, !
To be left alone. ! !
All I wanted
! Was a concession to dignity,
! Our own reservation. ! !
All I wanted !
Was our own ! Defeat. ! !
All I wanted !
Was to die. ! !
Looking into the eyes ! of my children, !
the gifted young, ! ! Who wished me in women's
clothes, !
Who silently called me ! white and compromiser,
!
I see the why !
I am!
The renegade !
I am!
The revolutionary !
I will always be. ! !
What land we had !
We must have back again. !
This is the stronghold,
The heart, the spirit,
The land, the heart.
This termination, this
Extermination, this
Compromise to survive.
The fenced-in barracks
Still stand
Beyond the ancient carvings
Of Prisoner Rock.
The signs are right.
The spirit. The land.
We must have back again.
Those of us still alive
Singing assimilation
With the flick of wrists,
Thrive on the sick
Blood of subjugation
Here on this very land
Where we died.
Captain Jack
Will be hanged
Tomorrow. "Instructions
To all persons
Of Japanese ancestry..."
This is the stronghold,
The heart, the molten
Flow, solidified
Blood of ancestors.
The blood of us is the red tule rope.
What are you worth
In the eyes
Of your sons?
The blood of us
Is the red Tule rope.
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“Of History and Hope”
Miller Williams
We have memorized America,
how it was born and who we have been and where.
In ceremonies and silence we say the words,
telling the stories, singing the old songs.
We like the places they take us. Mostly we do.
The great and all the anonymous dead are there.
We know the sound of all the sounds we brought.
The rich taste of it is on our tongues.
But where are we going to be, and why, and who?
The disenfranchised dead want to know.
We mean to be the people we meant to be,
to keep on going where we meant to go.
But how do we fashion the future? Who can say how
except in the minds of those who will call it Now?
The children. The children. And how does our garden grow?
With waving hands – oh, rarely in a row – and flowering faces.
And brambles, that we can no longer allow.
Who were many people coming together
cannot become one people falling apart.
Who dreamed for every child an even chance
cannot let luck alone turn doorknobs or not.
Whose law was never so much of the hand as the head
cannot let chaos make its way to the heart.
Who have seen learning struggle from teacher to child
cannot let ignorance spread itself like rot.
We know what we have done and what we have said,
and how we have grown, degree by slow degree,
believing ourselves toward all we have tried to become –
just and compassionate, equal, able, and free.
All this in the hands of children, eyes already set
on a land we never can visit – it isn’t there yet –
but looking through their eyes, we can see
what our long gift to them may come to be.
If we can truly remember, they will not forget.
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“Let America Be America Again”
Langston Hughes 1938
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed-Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")
Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the
stars?
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek-And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!
I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean-Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home-For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."
The free?
Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay-Except the dream that's almost dead today.
O, let America be America again-The land that never has been yet-And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's,
Negro's, ME-Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose-The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath-America will be!
Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain-All, all the stretch of these great green states-And make America again!
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“From an Atlas of the Difficult World” Adrienne Rich
1991
I know you are reading this poem late, before leaving your office
of the one intense yellow lamp-spot and the darkening window
in the lassitude of a building faded to quiet
long after rush-hour.
I know you are reading this poem
standing up in a bookstore far from the ocean
on a grey day of early spring, faint flakes driven
across the plains' enormous spaces around you.
I know you are reading this poem
in a room where too much has happened for you to bear
where the bedclothes lie in stagnant coils on the bed
and the open valise speaks of flight
but you cannot leave yet.
I know you are reading this poem as the underground train loses momentum
and before running up the stairs toward a new kind of love
your life has never allowed.
I know you are reading this poem by the light
of the television screen where soundless images jerk and slide
while you wait for the newscast from the intifada.
I know you are reading this poem in a waiting-room
of eyes met and unmeeting, of identity with strangers.
I know you are reading this poem by fluorescent light
in the boredom and fatigue of the young who are counted out,
count themselves out, at too early an age.
I know you are reading this poem through your failing sight, the thick
lens enlarging these letters beyond all meaning yet you read on
because even the alphabet is precious.
I know you are reading this poem as you pace beside the stove
warming milk, a crying child on your shoulder, a book in your
hand because life is short and you too are thirsty.
I know you are reading this poem which is not in your language
guessing at some words while others keep you reading
and I want to know which words they are.
I know you are reading this poem listening for something, torn
between bitterness and hope turning back once again to the task you cannot refuse.
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I know you are reading this poem because there is nothing else
left to read there where you have landed, stripped as you are.
“Ellis Island” Joseph Bruchac
“Elena” Pat Mora
Beyond the red brick of Ellis Island
where the two Slovak children
My Spanish isn`t enough.
who became my grandparents
I remember how I`d smile !
waited the long days of quarantine,
Listening my little ones !
after leaving the sickness,
Understanding every word they´d say, !
the old Empires of Europe,
Their jokes, their songs, their plots. !
a Circle Line ship slips easily
Vamos a pedirle dulces a mama. Vamos.
on its way to the island
!
of the tall woman, green
But that was in Mexico. !
as dreams of forests and meadows
Now my children go to American High Schools.
waiting for those who’d worked
!
a thousand years
They speak English.
yet never owned their own.
At night they sit around the !
Kitchen table, laugh with one another. !
Like millions of others,
I stand at the stove and feel dumb, alone. !
I too come to this island,
I bought a book to learn English. !
nine decades the answerer
My husband frowned, drank more beer. !
of dreams.
My oldest said, 'Mama, he doesn´t want you to !
Be smarter than he is' I´m forty,
Yet only one part of my blood loves that
Embarrased at mispronouncing words, !
memory.
Embarrased at the laughter of my children, !
Another voice speaks
The grocery, the mailman.
of native lands within this nation.
Sometimes I take my English book and lock
Lands invaded
myself in the bathroom, !
when the earth became owned.
say the thick words softly, for if I stop trying,
Lands of those who followed the changing
I will be deaf
Moon,
when my children need my help.
knowledge of the seasons
in their veins.
From “America and I” by Anzia Yezierska
1922
As one of the dumb, voiceless ones I speak. One of the millions of immigrants beating, beating out
their hearts at your gates for a breath of understanding.
Ach! America! From the other end of the earth where I came, America was a land of living hope,
woven of dreams, aflame with longing and desire.
Choked for ages in the airless oppression of Russia, the Promised Land rose up- wings for my
stifled spirit- sunlight burning through my darkness- freedom singing to me in my prison- deathless songs
turning prison bars into strings of a beautiful violin.
I arrived in America. My young, strong body, my heart and soul pregnant with the unlived lives of
generations clamoring for expression.
What my mother and father and their mother and father never had a chance to give out in Russia,
I would give out in America. The light- songs that died unvoiced- romance that never had a chance to
blossom in the black life of the Old World.
In the golden land of flowing opportunity I was to find my work that was denied me in the sterile
village of my forefathers. Here I was to be free from the dead drudgery for bread that held me down in
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Russia. For the first time in America, I’d cease to be a slave of the belly. I’d be a creator, a giver, a human
being! My work would be the living joy of fullest self-expression.
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"Nikki-Rosa" Nikki Giovanni
2005
childhood remembrances are always a drag
if you're Black
you always remember things like living in Woodlawn
with no inside toilet
and if you become famous or something
they never talk about how happy you were to have
your mother
all to yourself
and how good the water felt when you got your bath
from one of those
big tubs that folk in chicago barbecue in
and somehow when you talk about home
it never gets across how much you
understand their feelings
as the whole family attended meetings about
Hollydale
and even though you remember
your biographers never understand
your father's pain as he sells his stock
and another dream goes
and though you're poor it isn't poverty that
concerns you
and though they fought a lot
it isn't your father's drinking that makes any difference
but only that everybody is together and you
and your sister have happy birthdays and very good
christmasses
and I really hope no white person ever has cause to
write about me
because they never understand Black love is Black
wealth and they'll
probably talk about my hard childhood and never
understand that
all the while I was quite happy
“right on: white America” Sonja Sanchez
this country might have
been a pio
neer land
once.
but. there ain't
no mo
indians blowing
custer's mind
with a different
image of america.
this country
might have
needed shoot/
outs/daily/
once.
but. there ain't
no mo real/ white allamerican
bad/guys.
just.
u & me
blk/ and un/ armed.
this country might have
been a pio
neer land, once.
and it still is.
check out
the falling
guns/ shells on our blk/tomorrows.
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“The Bridge Poem” Donna Kate Rushin
I’ve had enough
I’m sick of seeing and touching
Both sides of things
Sick of being the damn bridge for everybody
Nobody
Can talk to anybody
Without me
Right?
I explain my mother to my father
my father to my little sister My little sister
to my brother
my brother to the white feminists
The white feminists to the Black church folks
the Black church folks to the ex-hippies
the ex-hippies to the Black separatists
the Black separatists to the artists
the artists to my friends’ parents…
Then
I’ve got to explain myself
To everybody
I do more translating
Than the Gawdamn U.N.
Forget it
I’m sick of it.
I’m sick of filling in your gaps
Sick of being your insurance against
the isolation of your self-imposed limitations
Sick of being the crazy at your holiday dinners
Sick of being the odd one at your Sunday
Brunches
Sick of being the sole Black friend to
individual white people
Find another connection to the rest of the world
Find something else to make you legitimate
Find some other way to be political and hip
I will not be the bridge to your womanhood
Your manhood
Your humanness
I’m sick of reminding you not to
Close off too tight for too long
I’m sick of mediating with your worst self
On behalf of your better selves
I am sick
Of having to remind you
To breathe
Before you suffocate
Your own fool self
Forget it
Stretch or drown
Evolve or die
The bridge I must be
Is the bridge to my own power
I must translate
My own fears
Mediate
My own weaknesses
I must be the bridge to nowhere
But my true self
And then
I will be useful
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“Fuel” Ani Difranco
Little Plastic Castle, 1998
They were digging a new foundation in
Manhattan
They discovered a slave cemetery there
And may their souls rest easy now that lynching
has been frowned upon
And we've moved on to the electric chair
And I wonder who's gonna be president
Tweedle dum or tweedle dumber?
And who's gonna have the big
Blockbuster box office
This summer
How 'bout we put up a wall
Between the houses and the highway
And then you can go your way
And I can go my way
Except all the radios agree with all the TVs
And all the magazines agree with all the radios
And I keep hearing that same damn song
Everywhere I go
Maybe I should put a bucket over my head
And a marshmallow in each ear
And stumble around for another dumb numb
week
For another hum drum hit song to appear
People used to make records
As in a record of event
The event of people
Playing music in a room
Now everything is cross-marketing
It's about sunglasses and shoes
Or guns or drugs
You choose
We got it rehashed
We got it half-assed
We're digging up all the graves
And we're spitting on the past
And we can choose between the colors
Of the lipstick on the whores
Cuz we know difference
Between the font of twenty percent more
And the font of teriyaki
You tell me
How does it make you feel?
You tell me what's real
And they say that alcoholics are always
alcoholics
Even when they're as dry as my lips for years
Even when they're stranded on a small desert
island
With no place in two thousand miles to buy beer
And I wonder is he different is he different
Has he changed
What he's about
Or is he just a liar
With nothing to lie about
I'm headed for the same brick wall
Is there anything I can do
About anything at all
Except go back to that corner in manhattan
And dig deeper
Dig deeper this time
Down beneath the impossible pain of our history
Beneath unknown bones
Beneath the bedrock of the mystery
Beneath the sewage system and the path train
Beneath the cobblestones and the water main
Beneath the traffic of friendships and street deals
Between the screeching of kamikaze cab wheels
wheels
Beneath everything I can think of to think about
Beneath it all
Beneath all get out
Beneath the good and the kind and the stupid
and the cruel
There's a fire just waiting for fuel.
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“What Do Women Want?” Kim Addonizio
From Tell Me, 2000
I want a red dress.
I want it flimsy and cheap,
I want it too tight, I want to wear it
until someone tears it off me.
I want it sleeveless and backless,
this dress, so no one has to guess
what's underneath. I want to walk down
the street past Thrifty's and the hardware store
with all those keys glittering in the window,
past Mr. and Mrs. Wong selling day-old
donuts in their café, past the Guerra brothers
slinging pigs from the truck and onto the dolly,
hoisting the slick snouts over their shoulders.
I want to walk like I'm the only
woman on earth and I can have my pick.
I want that red dress bad.
I want it to confirm
your worst fears about me,
to show you how little I care about you
or anything except what
I want. When I find it, I'll pull that garment
from its hanger like I'm choosing a body
to carry me into this world, through
the birth-cries and the love-cries too,
and I'll wear it like bones, like skin,
it'll be the goddamned dress they bury me in.
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“Until” Ayisha Knight
2003
Until last night I was missing the key to the place
I forgot existed.
Until last night, I was afraid to express myself
for fear of rejection, retaliation, from people
Who say I’m not Deaf enough,
because my English is too good.
Not Black enough because my Mother is White.
Not Jewish enough because my skin is black.
Not Cherokee enough because each generation
gets divided in half.
Years disappear taking with them denied
emotions until I could no longer remember
where this seed of rage and fear first appeared.
Until I started
On the path away form self-destruction and
caught glimpses of the flame inside.
Uncovered when the mask came off in games of
peek-a-boo
I see you.
I believed I was a rape victim until I owned the
word
SURVIVOR
Some see me as not straight because I share my
love and life with another woman.
Not lesbian enough because, well,
I have loved a man.
Hated my feminine curves
the roundness of my belly
until I got it pierced
and let myself revel in its beauty.
Not enough labels to go around…and not
enough strength to say
ENOUGH
Confined myself to an invisible cage
until I decided to move
and be free.
Not until last night.
Until I met strangers
soon to be friends.
When I raised my hand and reached through
The Looking Glass
to touch the reflection of she who is
me.
A naked girl running free loving
my body
Until drunk uncles started loving me too.
Believed all women would walk tall
until I saw my mother
Crouched against the wall
searching for protection against an uncontrolled
hurricane
of misunderstood emotions.
Until I met the woman who loved
me.
And held me with open arms
until I took a chance
remembered and then transformed myself.
Until last night
when I opened the doors
and the woman said
“Hey Sista! –huh- Welcome. Home.”
2003 Until Phanai Records
Performance: Def Poetry Slam HBO Season 4
<http://www.vimeo.com/2206707>.
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“What’s genocide?” Carlos Andrés Gómez
2007
their high school principal
told me I couldn't teach
poetry with profanity
so I asked my students,
“Raise your hand if you’ve heard of the Holocaust.”
in unison, their arms rose up like poisonous gas
then straightened out like an SS infantry
“Okay. Please put your hands down.
Now raise your hand if you’ve heard of the Rwandan
genocide.”
blank stares mixed with curious ignorance
a quivering hand out of the crowd
half-way raised, like a lone survivor
struggling to stand up in Kigali
“Luz, are you sure about that?”
“No.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“Carlos – what’s genocide?”
they won’t let you hear the truth at school
if that person says “f”
can’t even talk about “f”
even though a third of your senior class
is pregnant
I can’t teach an 18 year-old girl in a public school
how to use a condom that will save her life
and that of the orphan she will be forced
to give to the foster care system –
“Carlos, how many 13 year-olds do you know that
are HIV positive?”
“Honestly, none. But I do visit a shelter every Monday
and talk with
six 12 year-old girls with diagnosed AIDS.”
while 4th graders three blocks away give little boys bjs during recess
I met an 11 year-old gang member in the south Bronx who carries
a semi-automatic weapon to study hall so he can
make it home
and you want me to censor my language
“Carlos, what’s genocide?”
Your books leave out Emmett Till and Medgar Evers
call themselves “World History” and don’t mention
King Leopold or diamond mines
call themselves “Politics in the Modern World”
and don’t mention Apartheid
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“Carlos, what’s genocide?”
you wonder why children hide in adult bodies
lie under light-color-eyed contact lenses
learn to fetishize the size of their ass
and simultaneously hate their lips
my students thought Che Guevara was a rapper
from East Harlem
still think my Mumia t-shirt is of Bob Marley
how can literacy not include Phyllis Wheatley?
schools were built in the shadows of ghosts
filtered through incest and grinding teeth
molded under veils of extravagant ritual
“Carlos, what’s genocide?”
“Roselyn, how old was she? ¿Cuántos años tuvo tu madre cuando se murió?”
“My mother had 32 years when she died. Ella era bellísima.”
…what’s genocide?
they’ve moved on from sterilizing boriqua women
injecting indigenous sisters with Hepatitis B,
now they just kill mothers with silent poison
stain their loyalty and love into veins and suffocate them
...what’s genocide?
Ridwan’s father hung himself
in the box because he thought his son
was ashamed him
...what’s genocide?
Maureen’s mother gave her
skin lightening cream
the day before she started the 6th grade
...what’s genocide?
she carves straight lines into her
beautiful brown thighs so she can remember
what it feels like to heal
...what’s genocide?
...what’s genocide?
“Carlos, what’s genocide?”
“Luz, this…
this right here…
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is genocide.”
“For the Confederate Dead” Kevin Young
2007
I go with the team also.
—Whitman
These are the last days
my television says. Tornadoes, more
rain, overcast, a chance
of sun but I do not
trust weathermen,
never have. In my fridge only
the milk makes sense—
expires. No one, much less
my parents, can tell me why
my middle name is Lowell,
and from my table
across from the Confederate
Monument to the dead (that pale
finger bone) a plaque
declares war—not Civil,
or Between
the States, but for Southern
Independence. In this café, below seaand eye-level a mural runs
the wall, flaking, a plantation
scene most do not see—
it's too much
around the knees, heighth
of a child. In its fields Negroes bend
to pick the endless white.
In livery a few drive carriages
like slaves, whipping the horses, faces
blank and peeling. The old hotel
lobby this once was no longer
welcomes guests—maroon ledger,
bellboys gone but
for this. Like an inheritance
the owner found it
stripping hundred years
(at least) of paint
and plaster. More leaves each day.
In my movie there are no
horses, no heroes,
only draftees fleeing
into the pines, some few
who survive, gravely
wounded, lying
burrowed beneath the dead—
silent until the enemy
bayonets what is believed
to be the last
of the breathing. It is getting later.
We prepare
for wars no longer
there. The weather
inevitable, unusual—
more this time of year
than anyone ever seed. The earth
shudders, the air—
if I did not know
better, I would think
we were living all along
a fault. How late
it has gotten . . .
Forget the weatherman
whose maps move, blink,
but stay crossed
with lines none has seen. Race
instead against the almost
rain, digging beside the monument
(that giant anchor)
till we strike
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water, sweat
fighting the sleepwalking air.
“Fortunate Son” Credence Clearwater Revival
Willy and the Poor Boys, 1969
Some folks are born made to wave the flag,
Ooh, they're red, white and blue.
And when the band plays "Hail to the chief",
Ooh, they point the cannon at you, Lord,
It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no senator's son, son.
It ain't me, it ain't me; I ain't no fortunate one, no,
Yeah!
Some folks are born silver spoon in hand,
Lord, don't they help themselves, oh.
But when the taxman comes to the door,
Lord, the house looks like a rummage sale, yes,
It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no millionaire's son, no.
It ain't me, it ain't me; I ain't no fortunate one, no.
Some folks inherit star spangled eyes,
Ooh, they send you down to war, Lord,
And when you ask them, "How much should we give?"
Ooh, they only answer More! more! more! yoh,
It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no military son, son.
It ain't me, it ain't me; I ain't no fortunate one, one.
It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no fortunate one, no no no,
It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no fortunate son, no no no,
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“Coming to America” James Brown
Yeah, uh! Get up, now! Ow! Knock out this!
Living in America - got to have a celebration
Super highways, coast to coast,
easy to get anywhere
On the transcontinental overload,
just slide behind the wheel
How does it feel
I live in America, help me out,
but I live in America,
wait a minute
When there's no destination - that's too far
And somewhere on the way,
you might find out who you are
Living in America - eye to eye, station to station
Living in America - hand to hand, across the
nation
Living in America - got to have a celebration
Rock my soul
Smokestack, fatback,
many miles of railroad track
All night radio, keep on runnin'
through your rock 'n' roll soul
All night diners keep you awake,
hey, on black coffee and a hard roll
You might have to walk the fine line,
you might take the hard line
But everybody's working overtime
Living in America - eye to eye, station to station
Living in America - hand to hand, across the
nation
You might not be looking for the promised land,
but you might find it anyway
Under one of those old familiar names
Like New Orleans (New Orleans),
Detroit City (Detroit City), Dallas (Dallas)
Pittsburg P.A. (Pittsburg P.A.),
New York City (New York City)
Kansas City (Kansas City),
Atlanta (Atlanta), Chicago and L.A.
Living in America - hit me
Living in America - yeah,
I walk in and out
Living in America
I live in America - state lines,
gonna make the prime, that
I live in America - hey,
I know what it means, I
Living in America - Eddie Murphy, eat your heart
out
Living in America - hit me, I said now, eye to
eye,
station to station
Living in America - so nice, with your bare self
Living in America - I feel good!
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“Pink Houses” John Cougar Mellencamp
Uh-Huh, 1983
There’s a black man with a black cat
Living in a black neighbourhood
He’s got an interstate runnin through his front yard
You know, he think, that he’s got it so good
And there’s a woman in the kitchen cleanin up the evening slop
And he looks at her and says: hey darling, I can remember when you could stop a clock
Chorus:
Oh but ain’t that America for you and me
Ain’t that America were something to see baby
Ain’t that America, home of the free
Little pink houses for you and me
Well there’s a young man in a t-shirt
Listening to a rockin rollin station
He’s got a greasy hair, greasy smile
He says: lord, this must be my destination
cuz they told me, when I was younger
Boy, you’re gonna be president
But just like everything else, those old crazy dreams
Just kinda came and went
Chorus:
Oh but ain’t that America for you and me
Ain’t that America were something to see baby
Ain’t that America, home of the free
Little pink houses for you and me
Well there’s people and more people
What do they know know know
Go to work in some high rise
And vacation down at the gulf of Mexico
Ohhh yeah
And there’s winners, and there’s losers
But they ain’t no big deal
cuz the simple man baby pays for the thrills,
The bills and the pills that kill
Chorus:
Oh but ain’t that America for you and me
Aint that America were something to see baby
Aint that America, home of the free
Little pink houses for you and me
Oh but ain’t that America for you and me
Ain’t that America were something to see baby
Ain’t that America, home of the free
Little pink houses for you and me
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“Born in the U.S.A.” Bruce Springsteen
Nebraska, 1984
Born down in a dead man's town
The first kick I took was when I hit the ground
You end up like a dog that's been beat too much
'Til you spend half your life just covering up
[chorus:]
Born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
I got in a little hometown jam
And so they put a rifle in my hands
Sent me off to Vietnam
To go and kill the yellow man
[chorus]
Come back home to the refinery
Hiring man says "Son if it was up to me"
I go down to see the V.A. man
He said "Son don't you understand"
[chorus]
I had a buddy at Khe Sahn
Fighting off the Viet Cong
They're still there, he's all gone
He had a little girl in Saigon
I got a picture of him in her arms
Down in the shadow of the penitentiary
Out by the gas fires of the refinery
I'm ten years down the road
Nowhere to run, ain't got nowhere to go
I'm a long gone Daddy in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
I'm a cool rocking Daddy in the U.S.A.
Born in the U.S.A.
“American (Coming to America)”
Neil Diamond
The Jazz Singer, 1980
Far
We've been traveling far
Without a home
But not without a star
Free
Only want to be free
We huddle close
Hang on to a dream
On the boats and on the planes
They're coming to America
Never looking back again
They're coming to America
Home,
Don't it seem so far away
Oh, we're traveling light today
In the eye of the storm
In the eye of the storm
Home,
to a new and a shiny place
Make our bed, and we'll say our grace
Freedom's light burning warm
Freedom's light burning warm
Everywhere around the world
They're coming to America
Every time that flag's unfurled
They're coming to America
Got a dream to take them there
They're coming to America
Got a dream they've come to share
They're coming to America
They're coming to America
They're coming to America
They're coming to America
They're coming to America
Today, today, today, today, today
My country 'tis of thee
Today
Sweet land of liberty
Today
Of thee I sing
Today
Of thee I sing
Today!
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”Only In America” Brooks And Dunn
Steers and Stripes, 2001
Sun coming up over New York City
School bus driver in a traffic jam
Starin' at the faces in her rearview mirror
Looking at the promise of the Promised Land
One kid dreams of fame and fortune
One kid helps pay the rent
One could end up going to prison
One just might be president
Only in America
Dreaming in red, white and blue
Only in America
Where we dream as big as we want to
We all get a chance
Everybody gets to dance
Only in America
Sun going down on an La. freeway
Newlyweds in the back of a limousine
A welder's son and a banker's daughter
All they want is everything
She came out here to be an actress
He was the singer in a band
They just might go back to Oklahoma
And talk about the stars they could have been
Only in America
Where we dream in red, white and blue
Only in America
Where we dream as big as we want to
We all get a chance
Everybody gets to dance
Only in America
Yeah only in America
Where we dream in red, white and blue
Yeah we dream as big as we want to
“War Pigs” Black Sabbath
Paraniod, 1970
Generals gathered in their masses,
just like witches at black masses.
Evil minds that plot destruction,
sorcerers of death's construction.
In the fields the bodies burning,
as the war machine keeps turning.
Death and hatred to mankind,
poisoning their brainwashed minds.
Oh lord, yeah!
Politicians hide themselves away.
They only started the war.
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that role to the poor, yeah.
Time will tell on their power minds,
making war just for fun.
Treating people just like pawns in chess,
wait till their judgement day comes, yeah.
Now in darkness world stops turning,
ashes where the bodies burning.
No more War Pigs have the power,
Hand of God has struck the hour.
Day of judgement, God is calling,
on their knees the war pigs crawling.
Begging mercies for their sins,
Satan, laughing, spreads his wings.
Oh lord, yeah!
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“Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue” Toby Keith
Unleashed, 2002
American girls and American guys will always stand up and salute;
Will always recognize
When we see ol' glory flying,
There's a lot of men dead,
So we can sleep in peace at night when we lay down our head.
My daddy served in the army,
Where he lost his right eye.
But he flew a flag out in our yard 'til the day that he died.
He wanted my mother, my brother, my sister and me
To grow up and live happy in the land of the free.
Now this nation that I love has fallen under attack.
A mighty sucker punch came flying in from somewhere in the back.
Soon as we could see clearly through our big black eye,
Man we lit up your world like the Fourth of July.
Hey Uncle Sam put your name at the top of his list,
And the Statue of Liberty started shaking her fist.
And the eagle will fly,
And there's gonna be Hell,
When you hear Mother Freedom start ringing her bell!
It's gonna feel like the whole wide world is raining down on you...
Brought to you courtesy of the Red, White and Blue!
Oh, Justice will be served and the battle will rage.
This big dog will fight when you rattle his cage
You'll be sorry that you messed with the US of A
'Cuz we'll put a boot in your ass
It's the American way.
Hey Uncle Sam put your name at the top of his list,
And the Statue of Liberty started shaking her fist.
And the eagle will fly,
And there's gonna be Hell,
When you hear Mother Freedom start ringing her bell!
And it'll feel like the whole wide world is raining down on you...
Brought to you courtesy of the Red, White and Blue!
Of the Red, White and Blue..
Of my Red, White and Blue.
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“America, [Heck] Yeah!” Trey Parker
Team America: World Police, 2004
America...
America...
America, [Heck] YEAH!
Coming again, to save the mother *** day yeah,
America, [Heck] YEAH!
Freedom is the only way yeah,
Terrorist your game is through cause now you have to answer too,
America, [Heck] YEAH!
So lick my butt, and suck on my balls,
America, [Heck] YEAH!
What you going to do when we come for you now,
it’s the dream that we all share; it’s the hope for tomorrow
[Heck] YEAH!
McDonalds, [Heck] YEAH!
Wal-Mart, [Heck] YEAH!
The Gap, [Heck] YEAH!
Baseball, [Heck] YEAH!
NFL, [Heck], YEAH!
Rock and roll, [Heck] YEAH!
The Internet, [Heck] YEAH!
Slavery, [Heck] YEAH!
[Heck] YEAH!
Starbucks, [Heck] YEAH!
Disney world, [Heck] YEAH!
Porno, [Heck] YEAH!
Valium, [Heck] YEAH!
Reeboks, [Heck] YEAH!
Fake Tits, [Heck] YEAH!
Sushi, [Heck] YEAH!
Taco Bell, [Heck] YEAH!
Rodeos, [Heck] YEAH!
Bed bath and beyond ([Heck] yeah, [Heck] yeah)
Liberty, [Heck] YEAH!
White Slips, [Heck] YEAH!
The Alamo, [Heck] YEAH!
Band-aids, [Heck] YEAH!
Las Vegas, [Heck] YEAH!
Christmas, [Heck] YEAH!
Immigrants, [Heck] YEAH!
Popeye, [Heck] YEAH!
Democrats, [Heck] YEAH!
Republicans (republicans)
([Heck] yeah, [Heck] yeah)
Sportsmanship
Books
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Thinking Rhetorically “SOAPS Analysis”
Title of Text:
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Thinking Rhetorically “SOAPS Analysis”
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Thinking Rhetorically “SOAPS Analysis”
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Thinking Rhetorically “SOAPS Analysis”
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Thinking Rhetorically “SOAPS Analysis”
Title of Text:
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Notes:
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Notes:
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