(inspired by the word suggestions of Dakota Ridge students who visited the Mercury Cafe' on 9-18-2009)
How can Humanity
Have class when
We value football players
More than EMT's
Who are racing
To save our lives
On minimum wage?
Materialism isn't Evil
Humanity is when
It's scared.
What Class are we in?
Who put us there?
Low Class,
Middle?
High?
Each one treats
The Material
Differently,
Some Low class blacks think
They need to wear gold to prove
Their worth…
Are they any less Material
Than the middle class
Who's trying to
Keep up with the Jones'?
Respect doesn't come
From pointing a gun
Or wearing Amber-crombie,
It's both earned
And automatically
Given when you
Are a straight white
Christian Male.
It's not fair,
But it's true.
Existence.
Whose choice is it anyway?
If you aren't a full blooded
Native American
You are an Alien Immigrant
On this continent…
And if history went
Just a little bit differently
Then others would be deciding
If whites deserved food,
Health insurance,
Or the right to live here
At all.
Humanity has Class
Only when it realizes
Everyone is Unique
And is no greater
Or lesser
Than any other.
The Divine
Fashioned each one
Of us…
And how DARE we
Say Americans deserve to live
And Immigrants deserve less.
Return the Class Act
Act with Class…
