Wish I was born a black man,
Without the guilt of bleaching skin,
Wish I was born a Muslim,
Without the shame of Christian hands,
Wish I was born a woman,
Without the hard wired, violent head,
Wish I wasn't this demagogue, this hulking ego-beast,
Wish I wasn't a slave-master, an empire-builder thief,
Wish I hadn't dropped the A-bomb,
On all those yellow-skinned folk,
Wish I wasn't so clever,
So full of tricks and lies,
Wish I wasn't so far West,
That I am scared to kneel and pray,
But more, much more than this,
I just wish two thirds of the world could forgive me,
For 2,000 years of pain.
(This is an angry poem written from the perpsective of the WASP male - the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant male. That collective identity that has placed itself as the 'top dog' in the world and ensured that there were plenty of 'bottom dogs' on which to prey, whether that be on the grounds of gender, race or religion. And of course I am a WASP myself so I have this in me to some degree, it is in my genes and my conditioning. I know how it is possible to use the intellect as a means to post-rationalise loveless acts because I have done it myself and continue to do so to various degrees. For thirty years I too was too scared to 'kneel and pray' i.e. to admit the possibility that there might be something more powerful in the Universe than the human will and the human brain. If I can feel this anger in me at some level when I am one of the 'top dogs' myself then maybe it gives me a glimspe into how it feels to be have been on the other end of the cultural divide for 2,000 years. What anger lurks in those hidden depths?)
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