Racism USA

I see changes coming

but fear, if we forget,

the kind of people we've already been

Behind our smiles of comradeship

social accommodations are easily breached

and the return to bias is conveniently brief

Scapegoating rises easily from our souls

with simple gestures and rapt remembrance:

a familiar tale will toss us back

to patterns germinating within our flesh

One nagging itch

releases the venom of the past

warming our memories

gathering the fragments of hate

Carnival masks are dusted, donned 

patched and polished to spite;

facades, reshaped, hide our face

guarding our eyes lest they show our ugliness

Racism is the easiest cover-up of national sin

once we're convinced that every one's in

*Anti-Semitism is also an expression of a lack of talent, an inability to win a contest on equal terms -  in science or in commerce, in craftsmanship or in painting.  States look at the imaginary intrigues of World Jewry for explanations of their failure.

At the same time anti-Semitism is an expression of the lack of consciousness of the masses, of their inability to understand the true reasons for their suffering.  Ignorant people blame the Jews for their troubles when they should blame the social structure or the State itself.  Anti-Semitism is also, of course, a measure of the religious prejudices smoldering in the lower levels of society.

-Vasily Grossman