In the ‘Good Old Days’ things were much clearer
a spade was a spade you knew where you stood – it
was Black and White, crystal clear – clear as the back of
your white hand. No Blacks No Irish No Dogs!
A bit harsh on dogs was the common retort.
I mean what have dogs ever done to us? Imagine
today writing on a piece of paper and sellotaping
it to a window or onto a public house door or onto a nightclub
boarding. We all knew the inference – the mention of dogs
was unnecessary yet was always added nonetheless.
Ok for Blacks and Irish to wipe our arses and dig our roads
and drive our buses; and be the butt of inane jokes and innuendos.
These people were not really us – not really human – a sub grouping:
only nice white people were allowed in only nice white people
were included only nice white people were accepted!
Only nice white people without dogs need apply.
Today this has all gone! We are all new men and new women
– allegedly. We shrink from the past, try to move on, try
to make amends, try to reconcile a wrong. Yet something remains:
something inexplicable – a sort of collective transmitting psyche
– a shard of spirit – a pneuma – a phantom that lingers in the air,
folds in the streets, cries in our voices and actions: a sound that
drags – like chains and clamps, that tarries – that won’t go away –
that will not be silenced: an unforgettable acrid stench – as a dog
that is beaten will not come; as a man cannot be unhung
from a tree; as a whole diaspora cannot be unexcluded; as a race
subjugated unwanted unloved battered beaten hated.
This remains.
James McLaughlin
.