Ebola & the Prejudices that Lurk just Beneath the Veneer …

Ebola & the Prejudices that Lurk just Beneath the Veneer …

call me simplistic,

call me an anachronism,

but,

I detect a faint odour of old – time racism,

as the fear of Black Africa,

of Black Africans,

is camouflaged in haz-mat suits,

and carefully nursed,

fed, ratcheted up,

as the virus mutates,

digging up the fear of those ‘brown folk’,

‘these immigrants’,

‘the bloody foreigners’,

while mouthing platitudes,

to soothe the huddling multitudes,

solidifying the pervasive odour of thinly concealed racism,

and that’s the virus,

already a pandemic,

the virus of embraced ignorance,

of pleasant prejudices,

of the menace of the ‘other’,

the virus of raw, naked racism,

mutating,

sinking its talons,

into pliant minds …

For Pastor Martin Niemoller (1892 – 1984)

For Pastor Martin Niemoller (1892 – 1984)

when,

the hushed rage of prejudice rejoices in triumphant pomp and hateful ceremony,

and,

the silent dagger of complicit racism plunges deep into the soul of a world bereft of hope,

and,

the long knife of embraced apathy twists and turns,

then,

perhaps we’ll open our opaque eyes,

and perhaps then we’ll open our sewed-up mouths,

and perhaps only then will we whimper in mock shock and startled surprise,

for,

the festering hate that spirals around us,

in the fertile minds of quasi-religious bigotry,

is unafraid,

and speaks in the loudest baritone.

2.

Yet,

we accept,

we acquiesce,

we wish it all away,

but,

there will come that time when the lines are drawn,

when the purest hearts of silently smiling bigotry will hold the world in their sway,

with their cherubic, agreeable arguments sprinkled with pieces of fact that will kill, rape, pillage, and slay…

what then,

I ask,

will we do that day?

          _____________

” … First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me … ” – Pastor Martin Niemoller

The Stench of Prejudice

When silent prejudice strikes

in living rooms with plumped-up sofas

a quietly insidious venom begins to seep

into the consciousness of the chattering ones as they sleep

 

The beliefs held so true and so deep

appear stripped of all feeling

empty and hollow and without compassion

as the conceit grows in the chests of those with righteous passion

 

the prejudice once firmly entrenched

is worn like a warm and comforting shawl

needing precious little to compound and to mutate

into the doctrines of superiority and of aloofness and of hushed hate

we are all guilty of succumbing to this silent pervasive plague

as we sip martinis and laugh and shovel more food on our heaving plates

and as we slip into pleasantly inebriated moments we dare not care

to smell the stench of hate & prejudice & greed wafting in the cool evening air.