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Kerwin
While some of
them will hunt you down
to kill the
rest of you
the others
will hold festivals
to have
something to do
And even while
they make of you
the very first
to die
because of
age-old Dutch racism
we both know
it's a lie
And even if it
were the truth
what would it
really change?
the jingle of
the guilder
is the rattle
of the chains
The chains
they used to bind the blacks
and certain
whites as slaves
strange the
ways they have devised
to get folks
to behave
Lord knows the
list is long
no space is
left to fill
the names of
those they've wronged
the unknown
ones they've killed
A-h-h Europe -
your rope - your rope
around my
people's neck
after all you
have taken and done
what more do
you expect?
Yes!!! they
come and why not
to see
theirdiamondstolen sparkle in your sky
for us poor /
folk / of a darker race
it's always
been a place to go and die
Kerwin:
The 1st black
to set a foot
in America as
a slave
was left in
trade
from a Dutch
man-o-war
Kerwin: what
makes you differ
from the
others racism had die
is that your
case of death by race
is one they
can't deny
A blood-stain
on a taxi-seat
meant more
than your life
that's why you
layed down on the street
when you were
wounded by that knife
When they
decide
that one must
die
it's while the
blood is wet
that we're
obliged
to ask
ourselves
which one of
us is next?
Remember the
friends close to you
who did not
look like you?
who did not
treat you as
so many of the
others do?
Friend is a
friend is a friend
is not a color
of a skin
but a way of
being
this! hate
cannot relate
and this is
where racism steps in
Racism is one
thing we learn from history
has done more
to damage man than any one disease
people live
and people die: that is a natural fact
but not so if
the reason why is
just because
you're black
Kerwin you
were not the first
but we want
you to be the last
we want
fascism to stop
and we must do
it fast
Kerwin
No one
believes it - Kerwin did not - had he - alive
he would be -
but he didn't believe -
racism -
fascism - Adolf Hitlerism
or just plain
Amsterdam snobism
No one really
believes there is a thing called
racism
it's always
something else -
it's not
because of your color
they say: it's
the way you carry yourself -
Who knows what
reasons they'll retrieve
racism is
something no one believes
even when the
black lays dying in the street
no one
believes it
Closed eyes
don't see it
racial abuse /
an excuse
no one
believes it though it is true -
Kerwin didn't
believe / why should you?
Plus how could
he?
no one
believes racism to be -
like they
didn't believe the Vietnamese
pleas to live
in peace
they didn't
believe blacks should be free
after 400
years of misery
KERWIN
They didn't
believe / they didn't
believe that
we too should
have a right
to breathe -
no one
believes racism to be /
that people
are people
with a right
to be happy and free - happy and free
No one
believes that to be the way it should be
no one
believes it possible because no one believes
people don't
even believe
what their
eyes can see
the injustice
/ the waste / the inhumanity
they just
don't believe - they just don't believe
The horror is
so normal
so, so, so
informal
that the
normal horror is believed good
even at the
cost of blood �
Maurice Di, 25 August 1984
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Kerwin the Poem