Poem of a voice

The Poem


What do we do with a difference?
Do we stand and discuss its oddity
or do we ignore it?
Do we shut our eyes to it
or poke it with a stick?
Do we clobber it to death?
Do we move around it in rage
and enlist the rage of others?
Do we will it to go away?
Do we look at it in awe
or purely in wonderment?
Do we work for it to disappear?
Do we pass it stealthily
Or change route away from it?
Do we will it to become like ourselves?
What do we do with a difference?
Do we communicate to it,
let application acknowledge it
for barriers to fall down?
James Berry

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The Questions

• What labels does he place on the groups to which he belongs? on other groups?
• How did those labels shape the way he perceived his choices? the decision he made?
• Why does he have regrets? Did he make the right choice?
• Would your answer be different if he were a white American?
• Who is the victim in this story–Colón, the woman, or the larger society?

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Ideas not starting

• Jesus Colon "Do we pass it stealthy" the poem is similar when Jesus Colon wanted to sneak away so no harms in his way because the segregation in the time making him fear the white people.
• The blokes "Do we stand and discuss its oddity or do we ignore it?" No one in the school could nor stand up or help the victim being bullied. The Blokes also made them have no choice by making them be feared.
• The island "Do we shut our eyes to it or poke it with a stick?" When the people on the island found the man, they want to kick him away because their not their kind. When the quote of "Do we shut our eye" this mean"t that they will take care of him and have no worries. Soon the poet tells us that "or poke it with a stick?" this quote. This quote is significant because in the end of The Island they threw him out, the quote meaning that they don't want the responsibility of taking care off him.
• The Blokes "Do we stand and discuss its oddity or do we ignore it?" When John get blackmailed by The Blokes, "A little birdy tells me your dads a kid killer" which is really nasty. When he gets blackmailed, the people who are watching him in pain are just watching him being bullied up, their like bystanders watching, but can't help him. The people watching couldn't stand up for him, or even look at the problem. They just ignore it as it were just nothing.
  

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What shapes our identity what I think is people forcing you, apperence, emotion, how they look. Same as Jesus Colon, he was forced by the people so he left the woman who was not prejudice but the other people but not her. For example, If I forced a young boy to hate a certain person many times or talk about, the boy would be already learned and know about the certain person so he would be already controlled by.

Apperence is important, even now, it immediately tells who you are and what you are. If you wear proper clothing it means you are smart and really delicate. If you wear bad clothing means not rich, bad, and not smart.

These character traits tells and makes people do what they do, what makes the shape our identity.