Race in the Mind

Abstract

Race in the Mind Shane McCrae (bio) 1 At five, I thought the best of bothMet somewhere in my body, myBlack father, my white mother, herParents had taught me to believe Niggers were athletes 2 When at their best. It wasn’t fairTo force white boys to play against themBut whites were smarter, law-abidingNot loud, and good, for whom good always Meant better, boys [End Page 13] 3 And women, who were girls or womenNever white girls or women, notThe way white boys were white boys, womenOr girls, for whom good always meant White boys and silence 4 Except for when aggrieved, or whenExemplifying, white women, dyingAs I was dying, separatelyBut separately. I thought the best The strength of the strongest 5 And the intelligence of the moreIntelligent, had merged in meSomewhere in me, invisibleBut certain, certain as my skin Was mine, but certain [End Page 14] 6 Sure as the blackness of my skinBelonged to someone else, my whiteGrandfather, who, when he was youngWould drive to Eugene, he and his friends To jump black students 7 Young black men walking anywhereAlone, sure as the blackness ofMy skin belonged to him, and toHis friends, whom I had never met Who owned my skin, yet 8 Had probably never heard of meSkin meaning the idea of blacknessI had been taught, skin meaning meAll skin, whatever color, winds Meeting in the whirlwind [End Page 15] 9 All skin, whatever color, allSpecies, plus human, for the sakeOf argument, so that one, lateAt night might lean in close to another And ask, Say you’re 10 Dying, man, you need surgeryBad, in some shithole town in the middleOf nowhere, do you let a niggerIf he’s the only doctor in Town, cut you open 11 To which the other, where you thinkA laugh should go, he doesn’t laugh, hisVoice serious, replies I’d dieAnd take the nigger with me, for Argument’s sake, or [End Page 16] 12 They’re drunk, or wish they were, and can’tSay what they’d say if they could sayAnything to each other, myGrandfather’s friends, two, in the night In the light from the porchlight 13 Who owned my blackness like they, one atleast, owned the porch, the beers, the lightThat dies at the edge of the yard, or itContinues imperceptibly Forever, from the 14 Porch to the night beyond the skyWho owned the things they owned as thor-oughly as anyone can own aThing not a human body, meaning their own, the things [End Page 17] 15 They owned rotting beneath their feetAnd rotting in their hands, and rottingBetween the yard and the unboundedDark, not the opposite of the white Light, but its limit [End Page 18] Shane McCrae shane mccrae is the author of Sometimes I Never Suffered. He has received an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Lannan Literary Award, a NEA Fellowship, and a Whiting Writer’s Award. He teaches at Columbia University. Copyright © 2021 Yale University