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{jcomments on}Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, "In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."
I had my first encounter with racism when I was 7 years old. Tragically, the message of that moment is still the needed message for this one: The silence must end. We must tear down the fence.
Here is the poem I wrote several years ago about that first encounter in 1963:
DEWAYNE’S FENCE
Pontiac, MI 1963
020309
We were just grade school boys
Doing what grade school boys do:
Playing baseball in the back yard
And imagining I was Al Kaline.
I don’t remember who you were,
Or who Jim pretended to be…
Actually, come to think of it,
We all wanted to be Al Kaline,
I was the oldest and biggest, and
Regularly, I’d get ahold of one
And most literally “go yard,” on you,
While Jim went over or around
The fence that divided our small yard
From the next-door neighbor’s,
Endlessly running the path to
Retrieve both the ball and our dreams.
It turned out, that fence segregated
More than just the families’ spaces.
Jim, exhausted and frustrated,
Asked to swap places for awhile,
So you could be the rabbit
And hunt all the homers down,
While Don Spaula cheered our
Real game and imagined heroics.
I didn’t know. Honest, I didn’t.
When you ran after the first homer
Just like Jim had been doing,
I didn’t know Mr. Spaula would be mad.
I didn’t understand his words:
“Youare not welcome in this yard,”
But by the look on your face
I could tell you were not confused.
As if it were yesterday, I can see
The hurt, the disappointment,
The humiliation and the knowing
Casting a shadow on your dark face.
The innocence of boyhood play
Ravaged by a devastating reality;
The contentedness of friendship
Shattered by such cruel intent.
“I didn’t know” wasn’t an excuse then
And it can’t be claimed now.
Your memory etched in mine
Has refused to let me resign
To the cultural status quo.
I wish I could tell you I remember,
And how your pain shaped my life.
As if that would erase the wrong.
Words are cheap.
The difference that counts is to live it.
My life has been too often silent
About those wearing shoes like yours.
That darkness is on my soul.
I must – we must – do more than
Avoid the same prejudices.
We must tear down the fence.