Response to an Attack:

I have lived in the St. George/New Brighton community on Staten Island New York for seven years. This is a multicultural community and yet on too many occasions I have been the victim of religious intolerance and homophobia. On Friday June 6th at 4PM I was verbally attacked as I walked down my street on my way to the grocery. As a student of history I find it frightening that I should be so malodorously objectified by two, apparently rational, adults. It is particularly disturbing that this biased attack happened on my own block. Salem, how quickly they forget. I offer this piece , that my truth may speak.
In Unity,
Halley Low

Response to an Attack:

Do you know
what it is like
to walk down the street
and be called "the devil"?

To be the objectification
of too many projections
of someone ELSE’S
guilt and crime!

I am NOT a scapegoat,
I AM a human being,
and as a fellow human I walk amongst you,
with blood in my veins,
and hope in my breath,
with dreams,
not your dreams,
MY dreams,
but like you I am a human with dreams.

You who have been so down cast,
what have you learned?
In one ear you say you HATE the "Man",
and in the other you want to sing just like him!

You can pretend
the issue is
black and white
gay and straight
man and woman
Christian and Pagan
and buy into the divisive illusions
that are the System’s game;
Or you can recognize
the OPPRESSIVE REALITY
that is Patriarchal Corporate Culture.

I am NOT your enemy,
like it or not
I AM your brother/sister.

And to all "preacher"-fearing Christians,
OPEN YOUR EYES!