Kicked Out of Suburbia

Reading of "Kicked Out of Suburbia"

Tired of hearing how people hate each other.
Tired of words spilling forth
Not due to frustration
Not due to fear
Not due to histories or lies
Just to entertain.

Our hate does not come in the form of beheadings or
Lynching anymore, it comes in the form
Of child movies calling different cultures barbaric,
It comes in the form of jokes told between friends and kids who
Pass each other in the hallway, laughing.

Our hate is never so honest
It creeps and sneaks and appears
When a Muslim man tries to get a job
When a young girl wears a headscarf
When a college student speaks in Chinese to his parents
Over his cell phone on a public train
Or when a Hispanic youth is pulled over
For playing his music too loudly in his car.

Tired of the stereotypes they teach
Of skin color and class systems that always
Over turn themselves somewhere in the future.
Tired of the token black guy,
The Hispanic best friend or the geeky Asian.

Tried of these rules and these unwritten laws
Of the all-white casts that do not reflect our American population
Tired of the hate,
Which creeps and sneaks and appears
Whenever you need to be angry at something.
Tired of entertainment.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• poem
• poet
• spoken word
• reading
• performance
• Casey O'Malley
• caerspen
• poetry
• race
• stereotypes