CIVIL WAR:  ACT 2 

		Three hundred years ago,
		Europe wasn’t white.
		Men were French, Polish, Italian, Greek,
		Swiss, Danish, Ukranian, Turk,
		Finns, Spanish, Austrian, Swedes,
		Dutch, Irish, German, Serbs.
		Not white.

		Three hundred years ago,
		Africa had no blacks.
		They were Maasai, Himba, Zulu, San,
		Dogon, Yoruba, Berber, Bantu,
		Kikuyu, Ndebele, Ashanti, Hausa,
		Fulani, Samburu, Hadzabe, Igbo.
		Not black. 

		Then slave traders came with guns and ropes,
		buying and selling.
		Captured Africans filled boats
                stacked like cordwood.
		Now they were black.
		Auctioned off to customers
		who matched every shade on the gray scale,
		but had the power to be white.

		Opposites.  Duality.
		Authority vs. slavery.
		Slavery endorsed by church-going whites.
		After all, black property wasn’t Christian.
		Nor truly human. 
		When the world is black and white,
		individuality is erased.

		Only poles remain,
		like goalposts in a football game.
		Immigrants jockey for a place on the yard line.
		But the poles are not equal.
		The balance is off,
		and imaginary goalposts
		flash like ghosts.



		Tremors of change shake the field,
		and those who own nothing but whiteness
		lash out, 
		afraid they will lose their grip.
		Those whose blackness is matched
		by talent and ambition
		see a new day on the horizon. 

		But many hang on to the old days,
		days when Jim Crow kept order,
		kept the lowest white 
		a degree above the highest black.
		Along comes a TV name with a slogan:
		Make America great (white) again. 
		The second Civil War begins.
		
		Shots ring out.
		Hate crimes multiply—
		against Muslims, Asians, Jews, Hispanics, Blacks…
		The first skirmishes in a war we thought was over.
		Democracy dies first. 
		A foot on the neck, until life is snuffed out.
		We should have seen this coming.