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THE RACES OF MAN
david shumate
We learned in elementary school that there were five races of man. White.
Black. Red. Yellow. And, as I recall, brown. We drew pictures of them
with their variously colored faces next to buildings we thought might be
their homes. I gave them lawn mowers and automobiles and umbrellas.
Though my teacher told me some only had huts where they burned the
dried feces of goats and cows to stay warm. There were also those who
carried their belongings around on camels and pitched tents in the sand
which seemed like an exciting life to me. We learned how some of these
people said Hello so if we came upon a caravan crossing the street, we
could be polite. We were introduced to their gods. Some were angry all
the time. Others had four arms and three heads and blue skin. The kind of
deity I wanted watching over me. With each lesson our world became
more complex. We were tested on Fridays. Once our teacher held up a
can of chop suey and asked what color of people would be likely to eat it.
I wrote down white people. Because my mother served it for dinner on
Tuesdays. I later learned that the correct answer was actually Yellow.
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LA PETITE ZINE 24 · EMOTIONAL RESCUE
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David Shumate is the author of HIGH WATER MARK (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004), winner of the 2003 Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize, and THE FLOATING BRIDGE (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008.) His poetry has appeared widely in literary journals and has been anthologized in THE WRITER'S ALMANAC, GOOD POEMS FOR HARD TIMES and THE BEST AMERICAN POETRY 2007. He is the recipient of a 2009 NEA Poetry Fellowship. He teaches at Marian University in Indianapolis and lives in Zionsville, Indiana.
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