The Low White

“It was a grand opportunity for the low whites, who have no negroes of their own to scourge. They exulted in such a chance to exercise a little brief authority, and show their subserviency to the slaveholders; not reflecting that the power which trampled on the colored people also kept themselves in poverty, ignorance, and moral degradation.”

When Mitch McConnell and his boys
​Declared, “The South will rise again!”
He formed a pack, which pack enjoys
To posture southern gentlemen.

“A’m just a boy from Alabam,”
Quoth Mitchell, “and A’ve had the luck
To stand on principle—Thank you, Ma’am— 
And be there when the deals get struck.

“Ah am a man of property— 
And these white trash aren’t of my ilk,
But praised superiority
Lets homespun tatters feel like silk.”

Republicans encouraged them
In coded language, to feel bigger,
It was the Party stratagem,
And ’mongst theyselve wink at the “nigger.”

Yet, euphemisms tarn’t enough— 
“We loves the old Confederate flag:
It stands for heritage, sometimes rough,
Though shucks, we good ole boys don’t brag.

“We’re better than the black man though,
We’re civilized, and shut your mouth
If slave descendants halfway know
The gallantry of the old South.”

“Yet whiteness is a state of mind,”
Quoth Mitch to add a codicil,
“So hoop and holler, till you find
I’ve swiped the goodies from the till.”