RAce and the City

 From Race and the City, an SOS Art project

So here’s the lesson

A river is a boundary that laps both sides
Blindly, unless it flows between
Abolition and Negrophobia
Pushing pigmentation to one side
Or the other, carrying the oppressor
Forward, the slave is drowning

The law is a boundary, Black Laws
Walling out black voices
Yet walls surround white suburbia
And keep in fear and privilege
Negroes may have the tenements
As their place to scavange for hope

The highway is a boundary, pushing aside
Where folks dwell and build community
White roads shatter neighborhoods
Where black human beings make life
Then black folks scattering, them gone
Is all that really counts

The mind finds boundaries to wall in
All the delusions that make racism
Invisible in every visible way, racism
Wearing every mask racism can invent
How is black skin so impenetrable
Couldn’t they see that humans were inside

Whites stood on the shoulders of blacks
To crush black dreams, believing wealth was worth it
The factory floor was a boundary
Only a few blacks could ever cross
White prosperity arrived on backs of blacks
But none for blacks, their arms and legs
Were saved for menial servitude

Black spirit--human spirit—resisted
Any boundaries, any walls, never was crushed
Always a spark or fire, always burning
With its own songs and dances, and churches
In defiance, personal courage and reform
In community, schooling one another
Holding together fast to dignity, despite