White in the Mix
of by people,
I’ve never known anyone graced by that
steeple,
Me and mine came up from the gutters
where it’s dark.
Shunned as no good white trash from the trailer park
Yet supposedly cause of my color I’m a ruler
of this earth,
Never mind the fact that I’ve been dirty and
broke since birth,
Powdered milk and government cheese that don’t melt,
Holes in all my clothes impoverished is all I’ve felt,
People miss the point when they blame race,
Last I checked me and mine are with you in
the same damn place,
It’s about class these days money and property,
The rich on top then us on bottom in poverty,
It ain’t about the color of skin anyone may hold,
It’s about that beautiful equality in communism
to uphold,
Misdirected anger can make a wise man a fool,
Don’t let the rich subtle tactics make you a tool,
I don’t care how you look on the yard my brother,
Raise that communist flag high for that ideal
don’t see no color.
MIM(Prisons) resonds: We agree with the author when ey writes, “People miss the point when they blame race,” but we disagree that therefore it is just about class. The idea of “not seeing color” is common among the conservative bourgeoisie protecting white power, but it is also common among the general population in this country, of all nationalities. That’s why the bourgeoisie uses it, it resonates with many and it sounds righteous. It sounds kind of like opposing racism, and for some it really is.
Yet we challenge the Minnesota prisoner to see beyond eir individual experience to take on a sociological understanding of the world we live in. We do not challenge the facts written in the comrade’s poem about how ey came up, and we agree that in prison, in most cases, prisoners are one class facing the same oppressor. But the poem ignores the reality that there is an historically European-descended nation of people that on the whole are living a privileged life off the backs of the world’s majority who are the exploited. One must put on blinders to the majority of the world to talk about Amerikans as the poor and exploited – and this is a type of blindness that we must combat.
