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America has no caste system
but America has castes.
Like every other nation 

America has its rich and poor
with everyone else sardined
in tight rows in between.  

But America doesn’t have 
Untouchables, as some people  
in India are called. 

Yet in Mumbai and St. Louis
there are people who live in tents
and use a bucket for a bathroom.

In India, birth determines caste.
In America, color of skin 
determines caste. 

No matter how successful 
black or brown Americans 
may be, they remain

black or brown even when
they supervise pale folks
they otherwise might

never have to meet.
What’s in their wallets
matters not if pale folks 

can't see beyond skin 
that’s black or brown. 
Ask any American of color.

Yet some people black and brown 
from castes in other nations 
drown on the way to America.

They believe they’re free 
to earn a living here 
and some of them

are doing that while 
native Americans, both 
dark and pale, survive on 

Medicaid and food stamps
provided they’re poor enough 
to qualify for one or both.

But even if they qualify,
some find themselves in time
with a bucket living in a tent.


Donal Mahoney

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