crossposted from Booman Tribune
I had to write about this.
When I first read these words by this woman nearly forty years ago, they blew me away. I was about fifteen.
Of course, they were meant to blow the reader away...figuratively.
The poet was referring to Vietnam as well as the white policing of the streets of black America in the Sixties, equating the senselessness of war with the senselessness of police brutality.
But to some others, they were thought to be an explosive invitation to murder whites because the words were so incendiary.
They still are. Remember?
Nigger
Can you kill
Can you kill
Can a nigger kill
Can a nigger kill a honkie
Can a nigger kill the Man
Can you kill nigger
Huh? nigger can you
kill
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