America's Hypocrisy Or the School of Resentment
are you free, humanity, by power of love
or in chain by love of power or by lack of it?
a student of The School of Resentment asks…
back in time,
at such dominant spaces
called Shunganunga, here
or Hora Arsadi, Malka Atete, Tullu Nam Dur, there—
where points of above and below meet
where people went to fast to be alone with spirit
and where Natives preached to their youth
the “Seven-Generations Principle,”
that every Native should keep in mind:
whatever decision she or he was to make
in lifetime
would affect seven generations to come!
now, Puritans came,
and preached to the Natives:
that they came to “PACIFY,” to “CIVILIZE”
and that God gave them the land—
a safe haven to be free from EVIL!
those freedom fighters
sooner or later
banned the Natives’ right
and burned, slashed and killed buffaloes
cut down timbers, and disrupted nature!
now, Thomas Paine rose
and nailed the principle of independence
and, at the same time, engraved
the creed of Manifest Destiny
in the Common Sense:
that the coast to coast expansion
was justifiable and inevitable destiny!
now, Walt Whitman rose
and hailed “sex contains all!”
in his “A Woman Waits for Me”—
an ode to procreation or miscegenation
in which he strips
women of their independence
and Natives
of their self-assurance—
unlike his “Democratic Vistas”!
now, we have come too long a road
from “A Woman Waits for Me” of *****
from the “White Man’s Burden,”
to "The Vagina Monologue"
and to sing:
No society can be immune
to hypocrisy, social pretension, anarchism, oblivion,
until it refutes itself against its foundation values:
Manifest Destiny, Removal Act, Trail of Tears, Slavery,
and racism, the neo-Jim Crow—
going on everywhere and anywhere in disguise!
and to adhere to Democratic Principles!
in a society where economic freedom is at its center,
Individual Liberty, for the Individual
without Food without Shelter,
is virtually impossible, manifestly a lie—
or it is only politically correct!
now, before we go without going
it is time for us to learn new prayers
and thus the Pastor leads the prayer:
there is no Poor on this land
only the Rich and the not-so-Rich
we are all equal!
now we are not in jail or in chain
now we have a gun to fire
now, we can tear down Nature to see God’s face!
now, we embrace our Individualism
now, bless these couples:
he and he
she and she
we trust in GOLD!
here-and-now
hallelujah
amen!
Copyright © Assefa Dibaba | Year Posted 2015
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