Free Jimmy's Blues by James Baldwin

Staggerlee wonders
1
    I always wonder
    what they think the niggers are doing
    while they, the pink and alabaster pragmatists,
    are containing
    Russia
    and defining and re-defining and re-aligning
    China,
    nobly restraining themselves, meanwhile,
    from blowing up that earth
    which they have already
    blasphemed into dung:
    the gentle, wide-eyed, cheerful
    ladies, and their men,
    nostalgic for the noble cause of Vietnam,
    nostalgic for noble causes,
    aching, nobly, to wade through the blood of savages -
    ah - !
    Uncas shall never leave the reservation,
    except to purchase whisky at the State Liquor Store.
    The Panama Canal shall remain forever locked:
    there is a way around every treaty.
    We will turn the tides of the restless
    Caribbean,
    the sun will rise, and set
    on our hotel balconies as we see fit.
    The natives will have nothing to complain about,
    indeed, they will begin to be grateful,
    will be better off than ever before.
    They will learn to defer gratification
    and save up for things, like we do.
    Oh, yes. They will.
    We have only to make an offer
    they cannot refuse.
    This flag has been planted on the moon:
    it will be interesting to see
    what steps the moon will take to be revenged
    for this quite breathtaking presumption.
    This people
    masturbate in winding sheets.
    They have hacked their children to pieces.
    They have never honoured a single treaty
    made with anyone, anywhere.
    The walls of their cities
    are as foul as their children.
    No wonder their children come at them with knives.
    Mad Charlie man’s son was one of their children,
    had got his shit together
    by the time he left kindergarten,
    and, as for Patty, heiress of all the ages,
    she had the greatest vacation
    of any heiress, anywhere:
    Golly-gee, whillikens, Mom, real guns!
    and they come with a real big, black funky stud, too:
    oh, Ma! he’s making eyes at me!
    Oh, noble Duke Wayne,
    be careful in them happy hunting grounds.
    They say the only good Indian
    is a dead Indian,
    but what I say is,
    you can’t be too careful, you hear?
    Oh, towering Ronnie Reagan,
    wise and resigned lover of redwoods,
    deeply beloved, winning man-child of the yearning Republic,
    from diaper to football field to Warner Brothers
    sound-stages,
    be thou our grinning, gently phallic, Big Boy of all the ages!
    Salt peanuts, salt peanuts,
    for dear hearts and gentle people,
    and cheerful, shining, simple Uncle Sam!
    Nigger, read this and run!
    Now, if you can’t read,
    run anyhow!
    From Manifest Destiny
    ( Cortez, and all his men
    silent upon a peak in Darien)
    to A Decent Interval,
    and the chopper rises above Saigon,
    abandoning the noble cause
    and the people we have made ignoble
    and whom we leave there, now, to die,
    one moves, With All Deliberate Speed,
    to the South China Sea, and beyond,
    where millions of new niggers
    await glad tidings!
    No, said the Great Man’s Lady,
    I’m against abortion.
    I always feel that’s killing somebody.
    Well, what about capital punishment?
    I think the death penalty helps.
    That’s right.
    Up to our ass in niggers
    on Death Row.
    Oh, Susanna,
    don’t you cry for me!
2
    Well, I guess what the niggers
    is supposed to be doing
    is putting themselves in the path
    of that old sweet chariot
    and have it swing down and carry us home.
    That would help, as they say,
    and they got ways
    of sort of nudging the chariot.
    They still got influence
    with Wind and Water,
    though they in for some surprises
    with Cloud and Fire.
    My days are not their days.
    My ways are not their ways.
    I would not think of them,
    one way or the other,
    did not they so grotesquely
    block the view
    between me and my brother.
    And, so, I always wonder:
    can blindness be desired?
    Then, what must the blinded eyes have seen
    to wish to see no more!
    For, I have seen,
    in the eyes regarding me,
    or regarding my brother,
    have seen, deep in the farthest valley
    of the eye, have seen
    a flame leap up, then flicker and go out,
    have seen a veil come down,
    leaving myself,