Peter Laarman posted his rewritten version of the Emma Lazarus poem to reflect the unamericanism of those I wrote about yesterday.
Just like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land,
Here at our sea-washed sunset gates shall stand
A fearsome watcher with a torch whose flame
Sparks paranoid frightening, and her name
Purger of Exiles.
From her clenched hand
Flows world-wide warning; her cold eyes command
A guarded harbor that shows our shame.
“Keep in ancient lands, you filthy scum,” cries she
With savage lips. “Give me your white, your rich,
Your lads and lasses yearning to earn fees,
The choicest claimants we have known before.
Send just these, the vetted and well-glossed to me,
I wave my lamp beside the bolted door!”
Peter Laarman is a United Church of Christ minister and activist who recently retired as executive director of Progressive Christians Uniting in Los Angeles. He remains involved in numerous justice struggles, in particular a campaign known as Justice Not Jails that calls upon faith communities to critique and combat the system of racialized mass incarceration often referred to as The New Jim Crow.
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