Humanity

When it becomes too lonely to be “I”,
All the “I”s become “we”.
That is the beginning of culture.

Being “we” creates “them”.
That is the beginning of war

There were no blacks until white men created them.
They were just people of a darker complexion
on another continent, going about their lives.

Then they were captured,
bound, transported, and reborn in another land.
Abused, held down, tormented, and therefore feared.

Made into a new people.

It didn’t matter that they came from the Bushveld or Karoo,
The Swahili Coast or the Congo, Kalahari or Natal . . .
White people mashed all the Africans into one lump
and called them n—–.

We don’t use that word any more,
but we use the same thinking.

There were no Indians until the whites arrived.
No Native Americans, either.

(Native Americans!
Named after an arrogant map maker,
instead of a mistake made by an Italian
working for the Spanish
who never did know where he was.)

Before European explorers came
There were Apache and Blackfeet, Cheyenne and Dakota,
Hopi and Kickapoo, Kiowa and Mi’kmaq,
Osage and Paiute, Quapaw and Chippewa.

Hundreds of little groups, at war with one another.
Each the center of their own universe,
until they became one people in the eyes of the Europeans.

But that’s not all.

There were no Whites in Europe, either.
They didn’t become Whites until they reached America.

In Europe they were French and Polish,
Italian and Greek,
Russian and Romanian,
English, Welsh, Scottish, and Irish,
Gypsies and Danes.

They hated each other,
They fought with each other, they killed each other.
There was no unity in Europe either.

“Unity” came everywhere
when the little groups became bigger groups,
usually against their will.

It happens on our side,
It happens on their side, too.
And then we fight.

Do we have to wait for the flying saucers to land,
and give us a common enemy?

Will it take that to force humans
to become humanity?