Center of the Universe

This is a poem I wrote today based on certain things I've been researching, reading about, and hearing through the news. I want to perfect it a bit--it seems rough in places--so comments and criticism are encouraged.
It's slam poetry style, so like all my slams, imaging a pinstriped blazer wearing chick reciting it to a roomful of drunk Bostonians.



Center of the Universe

I'm reading a magazine article.

A man from America

Raises low-income Chinese boys

For future possible positions

in the MLB.

And he can't pronounce their names.

Instead, he calls one "Soldier",

One, "Wanger", one "Shoeshine",

And he has one of his own.

"Asia's Embassador to Baseball"

Must have had a lot of work

Working here offseasons before

Starting full-time in 2007

Without learning to speak

China's languages

Enough to call his boys

"Zhu Songjun" or something.

But don't call me a whiner.

I'm an immigrant, too.

I can speak just fine

And overseas, I'm red white and blue

The issue goes deeper

It enters your school

Texas's Don McLeroy, Educational Chair-Ass,

Taking Asian-written books off the list

Saying only words like "Chow Mein"

Might be useful to kids

And maybe it's true for you, sir,

But maybe others want their kids

To go further than ordering takeout

When it comes to cultural bids

But I'm sure he meant well,

It's not like he knows that First Nations people

Were first starved then killed

Then their kids grew up forbidden

To say the same words their parents did

Whites are the visitors that took over the house

But still won't let anyone new in

It was just fine when they were slaves

But if you want a decent wage,

There's no room, look at Vincent Chin

Look at Trayvon Martin

The associations last longer than the martyrs

Black is bad, yellow is sin

Brown is gangster,

Even if you speak perfect English

You're 'acting white',

Trying too hard to fit in

It's different, Mr. Baseball

And here's the thing

The way you were born is the way you'll live

But people not like you, not like me,

Have to embellish their color, come up to your standards

And even then they won't be your kin

Do you get it? They have to be something more than their skin

To even get a moment's consideration before

That label is handed to them

Slavery was always there

Whites just learned to economize it

Built our empires like that

Kids kidnapped from fields

Even if they knew how to read

Mostly didn't live through the high seas

And if they did

They'd pick our tobacco and cotton

And that's where it's supposed to stop, but

You don't know their names.

They're hard to say,

Even if other cultures seem important

In the end--

Mickey D's, Nike, Kraft Cheese

Yours always gets its way.

Your country swells until it fills

All our bellies and you get free refills

While in the back they're working

Nonstop shifts and cutting their fingers with drills

Learn our language

Know your place

We're the Center of the Universe

Everything else is just space

Nothing in it, no planets

And sure as hell

Does nothing there

Have

A

Face.