A Big Confederate X – A Poem

Flying in the breeze In the back of a pickup truck Like a big X A Jim Crow X A slavocracy X A battle flag for The glory of the South Back in the day When tortured people Bellowed sorrow songs Muffled by the traditions Of the South

The battle flag to preserve Slavery and Jim Crow The battle flag that Shouts, a Confederate, A Reb who wants to Leave America for a Past, where Southern Gentlemen and Belles Of the South live in glory Of bloody repression and State suppression of hearts and minds

The battle flag of terrorism, Lynchings and bloody whips Children for sale Mothers for sale Fathers for sale The battle flag, nostalgic For enslavement, then Repression and suppression Of democracy for Black folk

Fascism lived in the streets, Courts…everywhere, if You were Black That big X flows in the Breeze, or on a truck Window or license plate, Bragging: yeah, I use the “N” word, often And I curse Mexicans And Indians and all those OTHER people who ain’t white

But cowards pause for A moment, thinking they’re So smart, teeth grinning, Declaring, It’s not racist, I’m just preserving history And traditions of the South

That big X leading the Charge to yesterday for Tomorrow, going way Back to Lee and Davis Driving that message home: Racism, fascism, white- Supremacy, repression, Suppression, violence

They don’t need the klan: The police are the klan; The courts are the klan: The judges are the klan; Congress is the klan Backward racists in Pickups with big X’s Are the klan And prisons are the new Plantations, if you are Black, Raza or Native

The truth is, they Are preserving history A racist, fascist, white- Supremacist, violent history Bull Conner history Alabama and Mississippi history George Wallace history Pre-voting-rights history Pre-civil-rights (unfulfilled) history Separate but unequal history Klan history

That big X: the Constitutional right to Flaunt fascism in the name Of democracy to X out The voices and rights of OTHERS Let’s be clear, white supremacy And racism and fascism are not The history and traditions that Democracy loving people want