YOUR IMAGINARY N****R

James Baldwin once asked the question: Why did white America create the N****r? It was a great question that I wanted to explore.

I really would like to know why you created the N****R. 
What inside your mind created this savage figure? 
What was the purpose?  Why the inherent need? 
Was it just for subjugation?  Was it all about your greed? 

I was born as a man; from a woman just like you. 
Yet, you perpetrated a lie and told a story that wasn't true. 
In your story I am a savage; you made an animal out of me. 
You took away my humanity and said I wasn't born to be free. 

Why was I the N****R?  Something separate and not like you. 
It can't just be my color because you have darker versions too. 
No, I believe it was your hatred!  You jealous inherent need! 
I was beaten into submission to satisfy your insatiable greed! 
You knew I was a man and I walked, talked, and breathed. 
You needed me to be an animal so you could subjugate my seed! 

You needed this fictional N****R!  Your mythological COON! 
You needed me to be a BOY so I could act like your buffoon. 
It is a figment of your imagination.  It shows your inner soul. 
You created this dumb N****R so that you could feel whole. 

Some will say "I never said it!  I would never once call you that!" 
Your mouth never professed the words but we see it in your acts. 
Your effeteness is a problem that we have endured for far too long. 
It desires to quell our spirits and we must fight to keep it strong. 
You push the famously uneducated; all our fatherless and forlorn. 
Those who will COON at your ballgames and sing your favorite songs. 
You say you give us opportunities; but you boldly call it a hand out. 
It follows the N****R myth that we eat out the hands you hold out!  

No, you don't call me N****R but you think it every day. 
It shows in your evaluations and the shady things you say. 
Yet, the truth is I wasn't created to be your stepping stone. 
I was created to be a man and to stand proud on my own.
I am not that whimsical N****R!  I will never choose to be your slave. 
I will never curtail or diminish; or let you tell me how to behave.  

I was made in Gods great image just the same as all of you! 
I was created to live in this world and that is what I will do! 
Take your imaginary N****R!  He’s a fragment of your twisted soul. 
He is your needed creation!  We never needed him to feel whole!

© 2014 Eddie K. Phillips

Author's Note

People get really uncomfortable with poems like this but it is what it is...

Reviews

[sweetbuddha]

Well said. Made me slightly uncomfortable as I can relate. As looking more like the Japanese side of my family, I am called many names including shovelface, slant eyes, jap, etc etc. I had lived in Utah before and there are old concentration camps in Topaz and other places. I've often been referred to as Jap trash and that we should still be in camps because of Pearl Harbor. Way before my time *flips hair*. There are also negative connotations about Hispanics. I have many friends of Hispanic race, and they are a good, family- orientated, hard working people. I never pay attention to the negatives of racial slurs. I just pity the person, because it suggests close- mindedness.

Great write. You portrayed your thoughts very well. I enjoyed this read. You have made your point very well, and I liked the "uncomfortableness" that you showed about the way people imprison their own minds with hate whether it be racial, religious, class, etc.
Again, amazing write :)

[Marie]

You are right; I am very uncomfortable with this poem. I hate those words, even in your poetic context. I never label people, and I'm ashamed of those who do.

[Sheila Kline]

Uncomfortable? No more so than those who call others, "White Trash", "Red Savage", "Slanted Eye", and on and on. Bad names and images have become labels for every ethnicity, no matter what the color. It is the way of man, and belittles whichever race to which it is directed. You've painted everyone with the same brush.
Many of the points which you single out applies to every race at different times in history. The black man is not the only man who has seen discrimination. At different points in history, all races have seen some form of discrimination. In England, we had classes and those at the bottom were certainly discriminated against. In India, they have the "Untouchables".........and on and on.
It is what it is only because we choose to see it that way.

[Rogie-Dodge]

Well said .. it is word and thought that bind and enslave more than any chain or cell. It is thoughts that draw the artificial distinction between 'us' and 'them'. That is the cause of all hatred, violence, slavery, wars. The first step, of course, is not to identify yourself with those words, as your poem shows, and the second is not to use the same sort of divisive terms against others .. otherwise the 'us' vs 'them' mentality continues.