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Best Poems Written by Ian Mccleary

Below are the all-time best Ian Mccleary poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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My Encounters With Racism and Accusations of Racial Priviledge

It was 2019 when someone accused me of being in denial of the privileges I had as a white man. At the time I felt uncomfortable with this. I didn't understand how I had any advantage socially or economically over black people. I knew how I felt about racism, I had seen examples of racism, during the time when Barack Obama was president, when I used a portajohn and saw in black marker above the toilet seat, a racial slur about Obama comparing the color of his skin to human turds.
But i was unaware still of how much white supremacy and racism permeated our culture as high up as our elected officials and government. I was of the belief then, that the law was designed to target discrimination on the basis of race and national origin, but I still held to an outdated view of racial discrimination that did not consider how nuanced racial discrimination could become.
As the months flew by and a new administration came in, I began to notice evidence of racism and white supremacy much more in people's everyday language, even in those closest and dearest to me. I began to have hypersonic hearing.. not really. I began to watch out for these things even more. I began to fear and be cautious of people with these views about non white people and immigrants.
Today if someone were to accuse me of white privilege I would
not be so defensive about it like in years before. I grew up in a community almost all white, most of my class was white, I had no interaction with black people until I was in high school. Even when I was exposed to more diversity, I still mostly had white friends.
So I could not really understand the full story of what black people were going through, because I hadn't developed relationships outside the color of my own skin. I only knew race based on my own perspective, only based on what I had experienced and seen of life.
My accuser was not wrong.

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Biden Continuing The Tradition of US Interventionism

It makes me wonder if we have learned anything from our War on Terror in the Middle East. Biden gave the impression he understood that. I didn't think that Biden would be a War President, but it does seem like he is turning out to be more of one than I thought. He has 
gotten the United States involved in two wars overseas,
He's got us involved in the Israel Hamas War and the 
Russo Ukranian War. Even if he has not put any soldiers 
on the ground, he has sent military aid to these countries
at war. Not to mention he has approved of the missile strikes in Yemen against the Houthi Rebels. It is a mess.
The people who have been effected  by and displaced 
by these wars are the one's we need to care about, more 
than the war effort. Humanitarian aid is the number
one thing right now, and people need to rally to call 
for an end to the fighting in these two countries. As for Biden' s re election, our involvement in these conflicts 
Has hurt him especially among younger people who may consider voting for a third party candidate this November
Instead of another Biden Harris ticket . 
He needs to understand what he is getting the United States into, that we are continuing to carry on fighting wars
we have no business in being in.

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Free College And Health Care, Considerations For The Future But Not Absolutes

I am not sure who I will vote for in 2024 for the Presidential
Election yet. Many like myself, aren't content about a Trump vs Biden rematch. I would like to see a candidate who actually will do something about wealth inequality and workers rights. Trump and Biden have the backing of the corporations and the super rich, because their policies will be favorable to their interests, depending on what industry it is.
In many highly developed democracies like in the Baltic nations, workers are entitled to things that in the United States we are yet to really have. Things like more paid time off, more time off as parents when starting a family etc.
The defense budget is cut in favor of social spending like for education, medicine etc. The rich are taxed more than they are here, to support these programs.
This is definitely an option worth considering in the future. It would not be any worse than what we spend right now on our interventions around the globe. It could be a slightly better alternative to the nation we are right now, a nation that is in perpetual war, always in someone else's backyard. Think of Libya, Yemen, Iraq, Israel, Ukraine, just too many places to mention our unnecessary involvement When we give to Israel or Ukraine, that money is gone. It is not coming back to us. The debt goes up and the government has to find ways of paying it off. They will not pay us back for our help. That's just how it is.
I don't know whether the United States should have Free College or a Free Health Care system, because we don't really know what it's like to have it yet, even if we might know a lot about what it is. But it can't be as bad as when we send our money elsewhere and see nothing in return or to show for it like our failed war in Afghanistan, which is once again taken over by radical extremists.
Nothing was gained from that. So it has to be a lot better spending our money here and actually see something nominally positive.

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Ralph Nader

Ralph Nader isn't afraid to tell the truth 
How it is for American Democracy today 
We should be lucky we have him still 
89 and still going strong!  
It is in having nothing to gain 
And nothing to lose when it is easier to be 
honest with yourself and others 
I am glad this man is still alive 
because his insights add to what
there is of mine
He can see the hypocrisy in 
all candidates and smell it 
with his nose
That's what's 
different about Nadervision 
Than Trumpvision or Bidevision  
Theirs is turned off unless 
they see some advantage 
In turning theirs on. 
And often theirs is never 
clear enough to see the 
image in the screen so they get
half a leg or half an arm 
And focus on that 
like a dog drooling for meat

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Pornography As A Dehumanizing Force to Women

My wife told me yesterday, that she believes that women today have achieved equality both politically and socially and that nothing further needs to be done on the issue of women's rights. I agreed with her that women today are in
a better situation than they were 50-60 years ago. 
But when the topic of pornography came across my mind in the conversation, I told her that there are many women still who are involved in the porn industry, a dehumanizing force that sells women to the male population as an object and not someone to be taken seriously with a brain or with a soul or feelings.

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The Removal of Confederate Monuments As Reparation

Many white Americans still struggle with the issue of racism in the 21st century.This started with the Confederate monuments. The Confederate monuments do not have the same meaning to black Americans. While white americans view these works as a part of history, a past that cannot be covered over or changed ; the symbols of confederate officers being celebrated as heroes in public places to black americans will always symbolize a stain on America's very ideals. It was these people who fought to keep black Americans in enslavement and without any hope of being considered as equals to the white race. It was a wise move for cities to remove these statues and public monuments as it did not speak well for the image of America to continue to honor people who fought to deny people their basic rights and freedoms. 
Those white Americans who were opposed to the removal of confederate monuments and statues, showed that they  were insensitive to the black community and even antagonistic toward it. It showed that they did not understand black americans and how they felt. It was a 
sign of how out of touch white Americans were with the black community.

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On Racial Discrimination In 2024

Racial discrimination is claimed by many white americans to be slight and not as much a problem for this country as the state of the economy and other popular issues. They strongly believe that black americans are protected by law from racial discrimination, in things such as employment, housing, the criminal justice system. It has become almost  a common truism that our laws do not discriminate by the color of a persons skin, and though it is not always easy to prove discrimination, it happens more than one might think or want to believe that it happens. I will not do what many people try and rely upon statistics and graphs to illustrate this thought. I am not even interested in persuading anyone 
of this.
 But I would be quite mistaken to believe that discrimination today is so simple a problem to handle, as to reduce the scope of racism to the fringes of our society in a few sick individuals, who's goal is to violently exterminate the presence of black people, there is more going on than these isolated incidences of racial hatred.  
When diversity programs are cut away without fully understanding them enough it is a sign that there is some lack of insight people have that cause them to follow through with actions like this.

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US Treasury and The Faces On US Currency

There has been talk of having the famous black abolitionist Harriet Tubman replace Andrew Jackson on the 20 dollar bill. And I think though it does not completely address the problems our country has still with racial inequality, it would help in the process of racial healing to redesign this nations currency.
It might be useful to reference history when considering a new face for the $20 bill.
Jackson championed white male suffrage or in other words only the right for white men to vote, excluding the right of women, black americans, and American indigenous people, from participation in the Democracy of the time. Their voices were not allowed to be heard, they could not choose their elected officials, neither could they hold public office. They were second class citizens and were hence invisible and unimportant.
Many of the presidents that have become household names for us, believed in a Democracy for people who looked like they did. It was hypocrisy without any concealment.
Harriet Tubman was a true champion of Democracy if she is to be compared with the bushy browed Jackson. On a symbolic level she represents the definition of a Democratic government more than he does.
The accusations of political correctness toward the redesigning of US currency, can in some cases serve as a defense mechanism used mostly by white Americans, when they see their race as being rivalled by another's.
I do not think every president needs to be taken off of our money, just because they were not perfect men ; but there are some who might need to be reanalyzed due to all the whitewashing that's been done to them.
There needs to be better educational material and it needs to be taught better in schools.
It has been a slow process to have these changes made to our currency, and could take until 2030 before we even see a Harriet Tubman dollar as is desired by all those who know the meaning it carries for the future.
And whether Jackson is ordered to the back of the 20 or removed from it completely, does not make much of a difference in the way I see this man. Most of his qualities are unredeemable, and should be on the tablets of our memories as acts of inhumanity, inconsiderate of the personhood of
human beings.

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The Farmers Market

Being a man, and not only a man but a married man, I cannot deny that there are women who could appropriately be called nags. This should not be confused with the right of the wife to have her voice in the marriage. The husband cannot forget that she has the right and the freedom to express herself too, or else the marriage would be under the rule of a tyrant. 
One day I was out with my father, we stopped for vegetables at an open air market in town. The bearded vendor saw me sending a text to my wife asking her if we needed anything from the stand. 
Then the man said to my Dad something I can no longer quote word for word. But felt the air of judgement about my decision to text my wife before the purchase.
To the bearded vendor it was not manly of me to consult my wife, it seemed to him I had been possessed or fallen under the spell of feminine power. 
He was probably unaware of his comment about me to my father, the effect it would have afterwards on my mind, but still I never forgot it. 
It was just as bad as all the nagging to be made to feel 
like I had been emasculated by my wife or henpecked.
What an imprisoning mold gender roles are on men and women, something to be done away with

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Memory Laws In The US

I was reading on the so called memory laws or a state-approved interpretation of history. There have been states (Idaho, Oklahoma, Virginia etc.) to name a few, that have passed their own type of memory laws, with the intent of giving white people a version of history that they are comfortable with, even if not historically truthful.
An example of what these laws look like, can be shown by
the way certain historical topics such as american slavery are reframed. In order for them to cater to white denial, the slave labor system is re represented as something that helped black americans as something that was good for them, downplaying the very core of slavery which was about denying black people their freedom and rights of citizenship and exploiting them for profit that was never their own.
The root of holding black people in bondage was racism and white supremacy. Slaves were viewed as racially inferior, and this was used by white southerners to justify their enslavement. They believed blacks were born to be in a position of servitude to whites and they would not have them as their equals.
These laws were originally created as a response aimed at Critical Race Theory. Critical Race theory was the work of legal scholars and people from a more academic background. It is not taught in public schools and most Americans do not have an accurate knowledge of it or understand it well enough to explain what it is.
Instead these laws have the effect of regulating what teachers and students can discuss on topics dealing with race, history, or gender, which is a violation of the first amendment.
Hopefully these laws will be overturned in the future because if they are not, we tread on dangerous ground. If we cannot acknowledge and confront the racism then how can we do the same for now? We do not know where we are unless we consult the past, and if we don't consult the past in history we don't know the amount of work that there is left to do.