I went to Ethnic Heritage Day at IBM as a Florida cracker.
I wore bib overalls, red horsehide brogans, a feed-sack shirt,
and a jipijapa hat. My ethnic dish was a banana pudding
with a yard-egg meringue from Brenda's backyard chickens.
Huh? Was I making fun of someone? Didn't I know I was
supposed to be ashamed to be white? Was I being ironic?
Was I Lenny Bruce, asking, "Any niggers in the audience?"
What was I--a smart-ass? I was a cracker. A Florida cracker.
The WPA Guide said I had more in common with black sharecroppers
in Alabama than with the white bourgeoisie, what Manfred's granny called
strainers. Strivers. People who sought to better themselves by standing on
someone else's neck. Did they think I was the stander? I was the stood-upon.
We all had a good laugh over that. Haole translates Goddamn white man.
I was a native Hawaiian. A surfer. I spearfished and ate fresh seafood.
John M. Bennett. The shirt, the sheet, the shirt, the sheet.
A ling master wearing a hood with one eyehole in it.