'Some of my best friends are....'

'Some of my best friends are....' timothy r gates, 8/28/2012
at evening supper,

speaking of the Poor People's March,

my father said,

“Some of our best friends are black people.”

i didn't get slapped across the room,

this time,

but i blurted out,

“Where are they?”

as we watched 'cute young black children'

hosed down,

broadcast on all three TV networks,

i heard the beginning of change,

he barely got it out,

“I don't care what colour they are,

no one's children deserves this shit!”

years later these loving parents admitted,

“We were wrong to threaten to disown you

if you dated a black girl.”

I did.

Her father threatened the same.

We didn't tell our parents.

after all these years –

this innocuous phrase is repeated,

'Some of my best friends are gay.”

i won't get slapped across the room,

these days,

yet will be snubbed like an Anabaptist shunning,

when i ask the same question,

“Where are they?”

Uncle Bob died by asphyxiation,

couldn't live with the possible implications of being found out

(i can still see my mother breaking down at his closed casket).

recently my father said to my mother,

“It's too bad, Marvin didn't live today –

maybe he wouldn't have needed to die.”

Some of my best friends change.

Others don't.

Maybe not being burned at the stake breeds indifference.

I wonder,

“Where are they?”