And the Award Goes to..."We the White People"
Poet Dale K. Nichols lends some rhyme and rhythm to the pro-democracy movement. Proceeds from paid subscriptions go to support pro-democracy organizations.
Welcome to this morning’s edition of Never Trump Poetry, brought to you by poet Dale K. Nichols and editor Michael Broder.
Dale K. Nichols
And the Award Goes to..."We the White People"
This paraphrased rendition of
a paper without peer
won a law school “book award”
for best in class last year.
“We the people who are white”
is what the framers meant.
Parity and voting rights
for blacks? Not their intent!
Whites cannot be expected to
sit by and meekly vent
as a demographic war upon
our people’s being rent.
To turn the country over to
a “them” majority
would be a crime against us
and our people’s sovereignty.
Last winter the prize-winning student—
as his sermon on the mount—
with much less erudition
posted on his X account
that Jews must be “abolished”
by any needed means,
along with other messages
all racist and obscene.
This earned him a suspension
from law school and he’s barred
from campus pending his appeal
in court for what he’s charged.
Interesting how his vile ideas
passed muster in finely coiffed curls,
but when he scribbled graffiti on X
the college clutched its pearls.
Scholarly writing is one thing!
The marketplace of ideas!
But call a spade for all to see—
Well, that’s quite different, my dears.
Perhaps a moral we can draw—
However finely dressed,
hate remains an ugly beast
though artfully expressed.
It’s not clear what the future holds
for our white-nationalist friend.
That being said, we may assume
vile hatred’s not seen its end.
NOTE: This is another Nichols-Broder collaboration.
Editor’s Note:
This Preston Terry Damsky fellow, a 29-year-old student at the University of Florida Levin College of Law, is quite a piece of work, but I knew nothing about this story until Dale’s poem alerted me to it this morning. That’s what I get for no longer reading The New York Times cover to cover, as most people learned about Damsky via a front page article in today’s paper.
The headline—
Law Student Argued “We the People” Meant Just White People. He Won an Award.
—is clever, but in typical NYT fashion, it somewhat trivializes the story and invites us to muster a big 🤷🏻♂️ at the whole white-supremacist mess, a kind of collective “Oh, well, there go those kooky fascists again.”
I’m may be overstating the spinelessness of the NYT—If such a thing is possible. But I am far from alone in believing that this kind of editorial distance on the part of corporate media—chief among them the NYT and The Washington Post—the bothsidesing, the normalizing, the head-in-the-sanding—played a large role in getting us into the sorry state in which we now find ourselves—as a nation in constitutional crisis under the rule of a fascism regime headed by a pathological narcissist who governs by tweet and practices diplomacy by bunker buster.
Whew! I’ll go take my time-out now. —Ed.
About the team
In the words of Dale K. Nichols, Poet
Whatever I might feel about the merit of particular aspects of the MAGA agenda, I believe that Trump, as the movement’s standard-bearer and chief instigator, is a clear and present danger to the future of America and our way of life. That we the people decided to elect him to a second term points to certain dark undercurrents in our nation’s psyche that had been pushed to the shadows for decades until they were recently coaxed back into broad daylight. For those of you who are Harry Potter fans, I believe that Tom Riddle has reemerged as Lord Voldemort, and we Muggles are in the midst of an ugly Wizarding War that has already suffered many casualties.
In the words of Michael Broder, Editor
I started Indolent Books in 2015 as a haven for poets over 50 without a first book and a welcoming literary space for women, people of color, queer and trans writers, and others who do not fit molds or conform to expectations. I am drawn to Dale’s ability as a poet to reach a general readership with his message of resistance to autocracy and his activist support for democracy. While I am indeed a Harry Potter fan, my pop-culture metaphor for the Orange Menace is Burgermeister Meisterburger, the sadistic, oppressive, and abusive mayor of Sombertown who despises toys—and will arrest anyone who plays with or owns a toy—in the classic 1970 stop-motion Christmas television special, Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town.