Let America Be America Again by Langston Hughes

[Becky Lindroos]

But what happens when the "poor white” people attack the brownish-skinned people (from beige Jewish people and light-skinned immigrants from Mexico and the Middle East,  to Asian, "Red" and “Negro”  and all mixed up)?  Hughes outlined a brave coalition,  (lines 18-21),  but I fear it’s fallen apart as a large number of the white part joins with the government and sets them all at each other - in a perversion of “dog eat dog.”     (To say nothing of attacks on folks with different sexual behaviors or gender concerns?)  

Becky 

> On Jan 31, 2017, at 7:27 AM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> http://cbsd.org/cms/lib010/PA01916442/Centricity/Domain/2773/LetAmericabeAmericaagain.pdf
> 
> Let America be America again.
> Let it be the dream it used to be.
> Let it be the pioneer on the plain
> Seeking a home where he himself is free. 
> 
> (America never was America to me.)
> 
> Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
> Let it be that great strong land of love
> Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme That any man be crushed by one above.
> 
> (It never was America to me.)
> 
> O, let my land be a land where Liberty
> Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
> But opportunity is real, and life is free,
> Equality is in the air we breathe.
> 
> (There's never been equality for me, Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")
> 
> Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
> And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
> 
> I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
> I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
> I am the red man driven from the land,
> I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
> And finding only the same old stupid plan
> Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
> 
> I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
> Tangled in that ancient endless chain
> Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land! 
> Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need! 
> Of work the men! Of take the pay! 
> Of owning everything for one's own greed!
> 
> I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil. 
> I am the worker sold to the machine. 
> I am the Negro, servant to you all. I am the people, humble, hungry, mean-- 
> Hungry yet today despite the dream. 
> Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers! 
> I am the man who never got ahead, 
> The poorest worker bartered through the years.
> 
> Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
> In the Old World while still a serf of kings, 
> Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true, 
> That even yet its mighty daring sings 
> In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned 
> That's made America the land it has become. 
> O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
> In search of what I meant to be my home-- 
> For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore, 
> And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
> And torn from Black Africa's strand I came 
> To build a "homeland of the free."
> 
> The free?
> 
> Who said the free? Not me? 
> Surely not me? The millions on relief today? 
> The millions shot down when we strike? 
> The millions who have nothing for our pay? 
> For all the dreams we've dreamed 
> And all the songs we've sung
> And all the hopes we've held 
> And all the flags we've hung, 
> The millions who have nothing for our pay-- 
> Except the dream that's almost dead today.
> 
> O, let America be America again-- 
> The land that never has been yet-- 
> And yet must be--the land where every man is free. 
> The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, 
> ME-- 
> Who made America, Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain, Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
> Must bring back our mighty dream again.
> 
> Sure, call me any ugly name you choose-- 
> The steel of freedom does not stain.
> From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
> We must take back our land again, America! 
> 
> O, yes, I say it plain, 
> America never was America to me, 
> And yet I swear this oath-- 
> America will be! 
> 
> Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death, 
> The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies, 
> We, the people, must redeem 
> The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers. 
> The mountains and the endless plain-- 
> All, all the stretch of these great green states--
> And make America again! 

-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l