A Legacy of Hate

By Hamish Todd

A Legacy of Hate

I happen to be white
No privilege about it
Dad was Scottish,
“Military and Ministers
from 460 AD,” he said.
He left when I was young

Scotsmen founded the KKK
In the days of yore
Scottish nobles persistently
Appeased the English
With the blood and land
Of their countrymen
Something to be proud of?

My mother was Irish
An orphan due to WWII
From her blood I inherited
Alcoholism and mental illness
And anything good I have 

I had the splendid fortune to be 
Born in the latter part of 1965
In Liverpool, England
Where all the people were 
Talking about a popular band 
I had the Beatles more
To thank for guiding me 
Than my parents or any teacher 

The Beatles preached Love 
And tolerance and forgiveness
And yet were silly 
Could laugh at themselves
And comment on society at large
They were a constant source of inspiration
Though their music didn’t save me 
From alcoholism and Mental Illness
At any rate, I was a kind person, thank Mercy
I tell you all this for the purpose of context 

I witnessed my first display of racism
In a pickup on Indian School Road 
In Phoenix, Arizona
When I was 17 or 18 years old
in a pickup with some 
Other white kids, heading probably
To get some beer
Driving through Hopi Reservation Land
When out the window this kid yells,
“Fuckin’ Yackys!”
“What’s a yacky?” I asked.
“A Yacky’s a dirty fuckin’ Indian.”

I never saw those kids again
But I wondered and realized perhaps
For the first time, how some hated
For no other reason than for the color
Of the other’s skin

 This was well before Trump’s Wall
And scapegoating Latinos became a sport
Long before the Redskins were pressured
Into changing their horrible, racist name

This was long before Sherriff Arpaio
Still, it was the most open gun carrying
Maricopa County’s cops just shot their 44th “Suspect,” this year- black and brown all and not one cop
brought up on charges.  James Garcia was the latest, shot in his own driveway, in his own car.  Cops said
he pulled a gun.  They say that a lot after they murder someone.

Still, I saw entire Hopi families
At Reggae shows in Tempe
And I felt a brethren-like love for them
The Hopi lived in-town
I worked for them in a Drive In Movie
They owned picking up after the show

The Navajo live all about and around
And there are Apache and other tribes
Who were round up and forced to give up their land only to be moved to a piece of
snake bit
Sage brush land without water
or game or fish or love.

Later, back in the Northwest
I went back to school at 52
In Tacoma, Washington,
The Evergreen State College
And there I met a lot of black folk
Many of the young and some of
The not so young openly 
Hated whitey, of which I was one
Many did not, and realized
The need to move on
I was saddened, but of course,
Understood
So many black folk 
Have only a legacy of hatred
And repression and violence
Against them to hold on to

I hope in the coming years
Though I will be old
The youngsters will get together
And turn the page
Take the momentum
Of this moment
Into a new administration 
And legislate the hate
Out of the police
Out of the health care system
Legislate that there be
Fair housing and education
Then gyrate and boogie
Without burning anything down
And get to the collective business
Of solving Climate Change
Which is bigger than all our problems
But will take us all to put right

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Lives in Washington