How to exterminate an entire race of people:
circulate the rumour that its members are all racists.
A stranger passes you in the street,
And as he passes you feel his spittle hit your cheek and run down it,
And you can't say anything because he's so sure you deserve it
That he would kill you for speaking up.
And everyone on that street would agree that after all, he had reason.
A stranger catches your eye across a field full of people,
And your blood runs suddenly cold
Because she is looking at you, and you alone
With eyes full of hatred that speak quite clearly of her death wish.
Out of perhaps a thousand people in this crowded field, she has singled you out
In confident certainty that she is perfectly justified.
A stranger describes your people as 'hated'
Casually, as part of a conversation.
How many times have you heard that before?
And no one bats an eyelid, it is thoughtlessly accepted
Because no one knows that the crimes for which your people are hated
Were really committed by those who stole their name.
Yet it is your people, not theirs, whom everyone blames,
Even while your people fought their empires
And died at their hands.
A stranger remarks without fear of reprisal
That your kind should be wiped off the face of the earth.
You can't walk down a city street without hearing something like this.
And everyone else agrees that after all, he has a point.
They never did like your type.
They can tell from your face that you cannot be trusted.
A stranger regards you with suspicion. Well trained at eight years old.
She nods her acceptance, not considering that she may have failed.
Judgement is for her kind only,
Content with their insolence while you live in fear,
Always hunted, smiling too much or too little–
An existence she has never known.
A stranger looks suspiciously at you on the first day of work,
And at any sign that you're having difficulty she laughs.
"Can't do anything right," she says in a voice that everyone hears.
And if anyone thinks that was perhaps a trifle unkind,
Well, it's about time somebody said it like it is.
Nice to see someone cut through the bullshit
Your type is so famous for.
It's that honesty which always made her so well liked in the group.
A stranger passes you in the hall
As you move your meagre belongings into your tiny unheated room.
"Little girl," she says, "Spoiled brat".
So sure that she is right.
You have been raped and beaten
Because of your race.
That has been your life.
But still it seems you're quite marvellously fortunate.
And the words are so familiar.
How many times have you been told you led 'a protected life'
By a total stranger?
Day in, day out,
You could not possibly come up with a number
For something that is the fabric of your life.
A stranger objects that you're taking too long.
"We don't like it," he says in a cold voice.
And a line of people is staring at you,
But they didn't stare like that when it was anyone else's turn.
It's the kind of solidarity that made somebody laugh
When a stranger deliberately dropped your change
And commented on your clumsiness as you bent to pick it up.
It's the kind of solidarity that made everyone chime in
Echoing, one after another, the sarcastic comment
Of a girl you had accidentally bumped into
When your eyes were full of tears
From the rapes and the beatings
That didn't count
When they happened to you.
A stranger hears a remark of yours
Which reflects the resilience of your people,
And hastens to point out
(To everyone's agreement)
"Ah, but you don't know what it feels like…."
And you nod, as if it were true,
Because that has become your habit
In a world where everyone claims to suffer
Excepting, of course, yourself.
A stranger at a party is heard to remark, "Don't like that one,"
And suddenly you see that he is looking at you,
Though he has never before laid eyes on you.
In every gathering someone is bound to drop this remark
Making sure that you hear it quite clearly.
A stranger says that she is against racism.
Your eyes flicker, you know what's coming.
Who could count the deliberate misunderstandings,
Or the unprovoked lectures,
Or the sudden gearing up of several people at once
In case you might just turn nasty?
How willing they are to believe evil of you,
Not even letting you finish a sentence
In case it turns out to be something nice.
Last time you heard those words
They were directed at you, with pointed accusation
By a total stranger.
And the time before, and the time before that.
She must be firm with your kind.
Give you an inch, and you'll take a mile.
And true to form, everyone in the room
Is suddenly challenging you.
They are not strangers.
Last week they were checking up on whether you approved of genocide.
One of them always greets you with the same smartass remark
As if he were some kind of hero.
Everyone assumes you must be arrogant
And when someone jumps upon you,
Telling you how much she can't stand the sight of your face,
Everyone thinks you should put up with it
Because after all, she must have suffered more than you
And it's about time you heard it anyway.
Your past has been a sea of faces
United against you.
In every neighbourhood you have had to run a gauntlet
Somewhere along your daily route,
And when an outsider who does not share the hatred
Is surprised at what you confront every day
And regards it as a fluke,
You realize how other people live
Without the readiness to believe that they are evil,
Without the instant, universal support for any slander against them,
Free to react
Because the world is not waiting for an excuse to put them away.
Anyone who looks like you must be a pompous ass,
And the gangs that shout abuses after you are just kids having fun
In a world where your kind is not wanted.
And there's no point in making an appeal to people in authority.
It would be met with incredulous laughter
Or perhaps indignant fury,
Because all these people belong to some wronged group or other
And you don't.
There would be no point in filing a complaint
Of prejudice against your people,
Because they would laugh at the very idea.
And if you point out that your people are the remains of an extinct race,
They will say no such race ever existed
Since it has been so massacred
That it is regarded as a fiction.
No, it must be something about your character.
They know your type.
It's the kind that rules the world, right?
The kind that is hardly ever seen,
So put away the kid gloves with this one.
And how fed up they all are at the very sight of you
Even though you are the first one they've ever actually met.
You cannot appeal to one of your own kind
Because you are always a minority of one,
The last of your race.
But if, perchance, you did meet one of your people
You would get the same response,
For the pain would have been covered up
With more layers of denial
Than you could possibly cut through.
A stranger who has been invited into your house
Where you live
Looks at you suspiciously
With every intention of letting you know
That he is aware of your tricks.
How many times have people assumed you were playing a game?
How many times have they assumed you were not to be trusted?
How many times have they rallied to defend someone you had never attacked?
Their kind never met your people.
What could they be working on but stories they had been told?
And you cannot respond
In your own house
Where you live
So strong is this man's conviction
That he is exhibiting great self control
In suffering your presence at all.
A stranger drops the information that once last year
Someone didn't like her, though she had done nothing at all.
Everyone thinks this appalling, and then someone notices
That you are rather busy with your work.
But then you are so pampered, so indulged,
That you could never understand
What it truly is to suffer.
And so it is everyone else's job
To teach you that lesson.
Remnants from the Fae of northern Europe,
their Chaldee priests and their close kin in eastern North America
are the only human kind upon the face of the earth
that has been subjected to three genocides.
2200 years ago people of this kind were slaughtered, and only a few survived.
1900 years later the remainder were exterminated on two continents.
Tens of millions were tortured or burned alive –men, women, children, babies.
Not one full blooded member survived the holocausts, yet the persecution continues.
The remnants of these people have been slandered as no other in the history of the world.
They are generally assumed to be either evil or imaginary.
For 22 centuries it has been maintained that they are not human.
This must not be permitted to escalate into a fourth genocide
which is what our enemies intend.
a passing thought
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