When poets get angry, they write. I suggest you read this and this to understand the following.
-Nicole
—————————————————————-
in the animal kingdom it’s not uncommon
to seen bared teeth and sharpened claws
in the brief pause
before the pack kills a weaker member
it seems that we humans
instead of killing a weaker member
simply dismember
him by voting him out of our pack
then we wipe our consciences clean
with a foul
filthy towel
assuaging ourselves with excuses and lies –
disgusting -
and we have little playground boys and girls
standing spiritually stark naked
stripped of dignity
holding the expired end of a match
after being burned by
vicious fires of hatred
now ain’t this just grand
twenty-first century progress
we are so advanced and sophisticated
that instead of ripping little children to shreds
leaving them with raw wounds that never close
now we can simply vote them out of class
Written 5/28/08
© 2008 Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.
*calm and cool reply* Nicole my son has high functioning autism. Do I need to tell you what action I would take against this teacher and school….remember I am the girl who wrote Stilettos…thank you for sharing…I’ll be interested to see how this one turns out, and how long it will take for the teacher to pack her bags
Hello Ali:
You’re welcome. I just read Stilettos today actually, so I know what you’re talking about.
When I read the account about Alex Barton, I remembered how I was bullied, in grade school, junior high, and even high school. Although I don’t have a disability, I was picked on for many things…including being biracial and nerdy. If “Survivor” had been around in 1981, I’m sure *I* would have been voted out of class.
I will never know what it is like to be autistic, nor have I known anyone with this condition, so I don’t know how far I can understand. But I can’t stand injustice and ill-treatment, especially about characteristics such as disability, race, or sexual orientation, or even other things (the “hey, let’s go pick on the nerds” sort of stuff). Injustice – including the sort of thing as Alex Barton went through – makes me angry. It’s from the place of that anger – and my own memories of being bullied – that this poem came from.
Thank you for stopping by. And thanks for adding me back to your blog. I will be watching this incident too.
-Nicole
Update:
Holy crap, was I oblivious when I wrote this — and the above comment.
Given my recent discovery, I feel I need to say something here to clarify. I guess I didn’t really see myself as fitting into the autism spectrum at the time. Remember, “girls don’t develop autism spectrum disorders”. I guess thought I was just a weirdo. And to think I brushed off my fiance a few years ago when he suggested that I was.
Well, don’t I feel sheepish after reading this comment. Maybe I’ll print off my words and go eat them, with some mustard.
Happy Trails,
Nicole
[...] a minor ruckus occurred at one of the local open mics at which I used to read; after I performed Vicious (written about a five-year old boy with Asperger Syndrome being voted out of his kindergarten class [...]