Chaun Ballard
My Being-Black Dilemma
My students are learning how to make America. Great. Again?
One says to me (his literature teacher). Yes, I reply, Make America great. Again
and again, he complains, recreates cities, states, river systems, borders on the map.
This isn’t social studies. No, I say, This is context. Now continue making America great. Again
the Civil War is fought, the bloody lesson of a nation burned into youth. I teach them
North vs. South, industry vs. agriculture, but all they hear is “make America great.” Again,
as if somewhere in the South, engaged in battle, a stone-like pupil will emerge, horseless, to say he’s not seeing the connection. Make America great, again
I say to him. This is context. The story is difficult. The views, however visible, complex.
If we are to engage in meaningful dialogue, understand: making America great again
adds substance to the story. We are reading “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” and again Peyton Farquhar is to be hanged for the cause: to make America great. Again,
I must take my students through the grueling process of strangulation, how a man’s mind travels even until death, even until America is made great. Again,
I must teach them to pity the plantation owner: “a civilian and student of hanging.” I must teach them to look at the man as a man (not his cause or ideals) to make America great.
Chaun Ballard‘s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Chiron Review, Columbia Poetry Review, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, Rattle, Rock & Sling, and other literary magazines. Raised in St. Louis, Missouri, and San Bernardino, California, he is currently a student in the MFA Program at the University of Alaska, Anchorage.
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