Critical Race Theory
For my fifth-grade teacher, who handed me a book
�
But what could I have known–dumb
�and white and 10-years-old in
�that springtime of Bull Connor
�and Bombingham?
�
That year, Mr. Shimazu showed us
�the ways brightly colored tissue papers
�might become delicate cranes, even
�in a child’s awkward hands.
�
That year, I remember, he read aloud to us
�stories without pain or tears. And he never
�said what his own story must have been
�when the dust of war blanketed his world.
�
But one tranquil California day when
�my country was on fire, he handed me
�that incendiary book, for reasons
�I’ll never know.
�
�
