MY CLAIM TO VICTIMHOOD

I am one quarter
Irish
The "niggers" of Europe
Starved out
By blight
By famine
The English let them
Starve
Like trash
Like nothing.

Stowaways
To a better life
Poor too sweet a word
With nothing
They unloaded
African slaves first
At least they had
Some value.

In the New World
The signs said:
"No Irish"
"No Irish Allowed"
"No Irish Need Apply"
Trash
Less than niggers
Riffraff
My grandmother
Remembers
A cross burning
In her yard
In upstate New York
Put there by the
K.K.K.
Who didn't hate
Just blacks and Jews
But Papist Irish, too
Persecuted
Victimized
Discriminated against.

I am one quarter
Italian
Guinea
Dago
Wop
Guappo
Without papers
Grease balls
Little pizza makers
Gangsters
Criminals
Dirty crooks
The scum
Of the Earth
Degraded by
Hollywood stereotypes
Persecuted
Victimized
Discriminated against.

I am one quarter
Lithuanian
Meatheads
Who changed their
Family name
At the border
So people wouldn't think
They were
Polish.

Merged into
Poland
For hundreds
Of years
Until it was
Annexed by Russia
Russified into a
Provincial hinterland
Vilnius University
Other institutions of
Higher education
Closed
The Catholic Church curbed
Catholic monasteries closed
Russian Orthodox
Declared the state religion
Lithuanians barred from
Purchasing land
Their own land
Or erecting crosses
Or new churches.

Centuries-old ties
With Europe
Torn up by the roots
Boyars and peasants
Deported to the
Depths of
Siberia
The Lithuanian language
Its Latin alphabet
Banned
Lithuanian
With the Russian alphabet
Introduced
The cultural life
Of Lithuania
Paralyzed.

Invaded by Germany
World War I
All too brief
Independence
Invaded again by Germany
Disastrous damage
In World War II
Annexed again
By the Russians
Decades of
Soviet occupation
Massive deportations
To Siberia
Where they all
Died
Nationalized land
Collectivized farms
Thirty percent of the
Population
Lost.

Considered the
Scum of the Baltics
Persecuted
Victimized
Discriminated against.

I am one quarter
French
Huguenot
Actually
Run out of France
At the point of a
Sword
With all the other
Non-Catholics
Persecuted
Victimized
Discriminated against.

All of my quarters
Have been accounted for
And they add to
One hundred percent
Except that
There's something missing
The almost quarter of me
Most
Persecuted
Victimized
Discriminated against.

The quarter of me
So
Persecuted
Victimized
Discriminated against
It went into hiding
On both sides of my
Family
Jewish.

Villified as
Christ killers
Thought history
Persecuted by one-and-all
Half of the race
Up in smoke
At the hands
Of the
Nazis.

Persecuted
Victimized
Discriminated against
On all sides
From all sides
My claim to victimhood.
© 2003 by Michael J. Farrand

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