Vaheed Ramazani is Professor Emeritus of French Literature at Tulane University, where he held the Katherine B. Gore Chair in French Studies. He is the author of three books, most recently Rhetoric, Fantasy, and the War on Terror (Routledge, 2021).
My Fellow American
My fellow American,
have you had a good day?
When you woke up this morning,
was there a roof over your head,
instead of a tent?
When you brushed your teeth
were you grateful that your
toothpaste
was not a prohibited
"dual-use item"?
Did you have running water
with which to wash your face?
a toilet to flush?
a working sewage system?
Food
and a refrigerator to keep it cold,
an oven to heat it up,
electricity or gas?
When you drove to work
did you fear that a drone,
an F-15 fighter jet,
or an Apache helicopter
might target your car
with a precision-guided missile?
Was the road's surface smooth,
or cratered by bulldozers
and exploded bombs?
Was your progress impeded
by barriers and checkpoints?
Were you "administratively detained,"
handcuffed and tortured
until you "confessed"
to what you didn't do?
Are hospitals,
schools,
places of worship
readily available to you,
here in the U.S.?
In Gaza,
you may have heard,
all structure, all infrastructure
has haplessly succumbed
to the 2000-pound
American-made bomb
with its lethal radius
of a quarter of a mile.
But
my fellow citizen,
my accomplice in genocide,
don't let that knowledge
ruin your day.
