the woman’s opulence did not mean she would be haughty and uptight
some wealthy people are not rude, selfish and snotty
I decided to give the woman a fair chance
She talked down to me as if I was a worm crawling out of an alley
That must have been an accident
I gave her another chance
She made a snide remark about my background
Which she does not know
Her disdainful smile would have been impossible to miss
Even if I could have ignored her supercilious attitude
and her rude words
“was she kind?” my grandmother asked me.
“You will have to find out for yourself,” I told her.
Within minutes of their conversation I saw my grandmother pop her eyes.
We left right away, for we had come up with the same conclusion
This snob was not worth our time.
Categories:
generalize, me,
Form: Prose Poetry
All blondes wear diamond rings and drive Mercedes so old.
All brunettes wear green straw hats and plant marigolds.
All tall people play golf on Saturdays and are Methodists winkers.
All Americans are overweight donut-eating, chocolate milk drinkers.
All Africans wear their hair in braids, and despise tattoos of a girl.
All Mexicans like hot taco sauce and dance in a frenzied whirl.
All old people want to be young, and resent their mother.
All only children want siblings, wishing they had a brother.
All men want a crazy, out-of-control woman in their bedroom.
All divorcees want to marry a millionaire who is not full of gloom.
All Republicans want a dictator to be president who is angry and blue.
All liberals want to give free food to the undocumented, and do.
The minute you think of people as a group of “all” you are wrong.
Please memorize this poem, and sing it as a song.
If you cannot see this by now, then I must join the throng.
For I have written this poem entirely wrong.
Categories:
generalize, 10th grade, 11th grade,
Form: Rhyme
I accommodate everyone I see, because I grew up in a small town.
It is what we do, or so I thought because my mother told us we did.
Until I met others who did not know what I was talking about.
Why are you so accommodating?
He asked me. What makes you this way?
He shook his head ‘no’
when I explained that all people in small towns do this.
When he told me he grew up in a small town, I was out of words.
I would have never guessed it; for I truly thought we were all the same.
Just one more misconception to put into
my let’s not generalize people files.
I have six million and forty-two of them, so you would think I could learn.
Categories:
generalize, 10th grade, 11th grade,
Form: Free verse
Are you a Halloween cat? I queried the preening feline.
Don’t generalize all black cats she said with a sniff and a whine.
I was shocked because surely she knew about the teeny witches.
Who were holding up her ears on broomsticks with snitches.
But I thought, I began to say, apologizing for stereotyping.
She began to laugh then, saying “I was only snipping.”
I was not laughing though, for I did not know her at all.
Of course, I will certainly avoid her when I see her next fall.
Categories:
generalize, 3rd grade, 4th grade,
Form: Rhyme
My best friend is one color, I am another.
We are soul sisters, cousins, we love each other.
We are treated differently by people who do not know us at all.
But judge us on skin color, which is so ignorant, it’s small.
She tells me she has to warn young men to be careful and clean.
They will be stopped for stuff others might have never even seen.
She tells me that her students are afraid of the police.
They have seen what some will do, and it is not keep the peace.
Told her about a disappointment I had once, when I really wanted a job.
Boss chose man with specific skin color, to prove she was not a snob.
I had done this job as a volunteer for about twenty-eight hours a week.
They hired the other person, who kept my job for barely a week.
My best friend and I have some lessons and stories to tell.
We know each other beautifully, soul cousins, we know each other well.
We do not generalize “all whites or all blacks”
Because we are best friends, and have each other’s backs.
Categories:
generalize, racism,
Form: Rhyme
ok cer
ay tai
som nly
e but not
* a
* l
* l
*****************
tiny creepy crawly
big eyed mini-creatures
who tiptoe across our
skin while we sleep are
not looking to give us
a disease or a horrid
sting or bite. So let us
not generalize our bugs
If you do not mind. Let
us not generalize our
stings or our bites either.
signed your own bug king.
O
U
C
H
Categories:
generalize, 10th grade, 4th grade,
Form: Shape
Villanelle: Generalize and prejudice will congeal
Generalize and prejudice will congeal
No prejudice justifies the call to arms
Exceptions crop up only for common weal
Know the next man's the best chance for a fair deal
The exception always battens down your qualms
Generalize and prejudice will congeal
Not to generalize makes neither big deal
The other man's prejudice will quash your balms
Exceptions crop up only for common weal
Many or all nurse their hatreds and conceal
Their dreams of pure race culture under sweet psalms
Generalize and prejudice will congeal
Genes that mutate miscegenate still reveal
Our Father who art in Africa's realms
Exceptions crop up for the common weal
The only prejudice worth a mighty peal
Who the damn stuffed genius brains in human forms
Generalize and prejudice will congeal
Exceptions crop up only for common weal
© T. Wignesan - Paris, 2017
Categories:
generalize, africa, character, father, prejudice,
Form: Villanelle