Leave the Confederate monuments!
Adorn them with their sin.
Allow them to speak their volumes,
Let them hold nothing in.
Beside the general on horseback,
Place a slave-whipping post.
Surely, the general in question won’t mind –
In the way of life for which he fought,
Of that type of brutality they did boast.
In other pursuits of the men in gray,
With another general, staunch as a wall,
Why not adorn them with a human vending block?
That type of meat market, none did shock.
The antebellum mansions proud,
With their Greek stoas gleaming --
Trim that with a little shack,
Perhaps, with some Darkies, beaming.
Oh, the scenes up with which one could conjure!
(Thanks, Winnie, for that one.)
Fair belles, in their hoop-spread skirts,
Bidding farewell to their brave soldiers,
While Mammy cries for her sold-off child – ‘til it hurts.
Stephen Foster, there upon his perch,
Singing of a South of which he knew naught.
Old Black Joe, mourning for his master,
In his cold, cold grave – What rot!
Next to that Confederate flag,
Flying high in the wind,
Let them attach the bloody rag
Of all the debauched kith and kin.
They would not listen to General Lee,
Who said, “Shut up and forget it.”
They had to invent some stupid, “Lost Cause” –
And now, perhaps, they regret it.
“Let sleeping dogs lie,”
They somehow could not grasp.
So, up with the monuments,
Long after Lee passed.
In Century 21, though, everyone votes,
Those monuments offend the electorate.
But, wait, don’t vote them away –
Dress them up; have a holiday.
Adorn them with all the memories,
Not just a few.
Include all the sins forgot –
Throw in a lynched Jew!
The South has lots to remember –
Black Laws and the like –
Cheerful old Jim Crow,
With heads on a spike.
Don’t sit here; don’t go there –
Go ‘round the back.
Say yassuh and mo ma’am –
Don’t dare sass me, boy!
Oh, let’s get it all in.
High upon the monuments, let these things there dangle.
At each and every angle,
Come, let’s adorn the toy!
***** ***** *****
Now, for you hotheaded, young Nigs over at Princeton: Leave the Wilson name, busts and statues where they are! Take my advice and, “Adorn: them, as well.
Wilson, as Princeton president, had already absorbed enough racial hatred by being born in Virginia and reared in South Carolina during the Civil War; however when he became U.S. president he was able viscerally to act upon his apparently pent-up feelings.
Adorn the Wilson memorabilia at Princeton with choice trimmings such as these:
• When Wilson reached Washington he stymied a limited avenue for middle-class African American advancement by declaring civil service jobs to be physically segregated..
• While keeping his jackboot on the necks of American citizens of color, at home, Wilson hustled up Black bodies, in segregated units and sent them, “Over There” to save Europeans – who contrary to their American “compatriots,” actually treated the darker Americans like real human beings.
• During the 1919 race riots – instead of calling out troops to enforce the peace – Wilson stood in the window at the
White House and watched African Americans being set upon by mobs of rioters.
No, Princeton, do not remove the Wilson memorials – adorn them with these and other choice trimmings available in the archives!
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