History Lessons

Growing up white

the Negro was someone

my father knew of, and disapproved,

seldom spoke about, and the Japanese

were an old enemy he couldn’t forgive,

wouldn’t talk about, saddened still

by the burials at sea.

And history presented itself

to me without them, the Negro, the Japanese,

others I knew so little about,

yet I’ve found them now no different from me,

bipedal and seeking love, seeking peace,

no different except in color and race

and a history I never learned at school,

interconnected histories that shaped

and morphed us and our perceptions,

so hard to change, years hence,

when change we must, and understanding.

In this world today where it matters,

their history and mine and ours and the world

we have become, we must overcome ourselves –

remembering –

to begin a new history, one history

shared, leading us toward one humanity,

one people finding love, finding ourselves
and an end to the things that separate us.