WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.710 align:middle line:90%


00:00:01.710 --> 00:00:05.710 align:middle line:84%
I live in Minneapolis,
chilly Minneapolis.

00:00:05.710 --> 00:00:09.342 align:middle line:90%


00:00:09.342 --> 00:00:11.300 align:middle line:84%
Most of you know about
Garrison Keillor, right?

00:00:11.300 --> 00:00:14.310 align:middle line:84%
And Land of Lake Wobegon where
all the men are stronger,

00:00:14.310 --> 00:00:14.840 align:middle line:90%
you know?

00:00:14.840 --> 00:00:15.830 align:middle line:90%
Blah, blah, blah.

00:00:15.830 --> 00:00:19.850 align:middle line:84%
OK, and people have this image
of Minnesota, which really

00:00:19.850 --> 00:00:21.950 align:middle line:84%
doesn't conform,
certainly Minneapolis,

00:00:21.950 --> 00:00:24.080 align:middle line:90%
conform to the state.

00:00:24.080 --> 00:00:26.210 align:middle line:84%
I mean, Chris Rock
in his routine

00:00:26.210 --> 00:00:28.370 align:middle line:84%
says, Minnesota, the
only Black people

00:00:28.370 --> 00:00:32.750 align:middle line:84%
there are Prince and
Kevin Garnett, when

00:00:32.750 --> 00:00:35.780 align:middle line:84%
in actuality 80% of the kids in
the Minneapolis school system

00:00:35.780 --> 00:00:38.510 align:middle line:90%
are kids of color.

00:00:38.510 --> 00:00:40.430 align:middle line:84%
We have the second
largest Muslim population

00:00:40.430 --> 00:00:43.400 align:middle line:84%
in the country, and as I say
in the first line of this poem

00:00:43.400 --> 00:00:46.450 align:middle line:84%
there are 150 first languages
in the public schools.

00:00:46.450 --> 00:00:48.050 align:middle line:84%
In the schools my
kids go to there

00:00:48.050 --> 00:00:53.690 align:middle line:84%
are 35 first languages
in their grade school,

00:00:53.690 --> 00:00:57.530 align:middle line:84%
so this is just a poem about
the school that my kids go to.

00:00:57.530 --> 00:01:00.560 align:middle line:90%


00:01:00.560 --> 00:01:03.830 align:middle line:84%
It's called
"Minneapolis Public".

00:01:03.830 --> 00:01:08.340 align:middle line:84%
There are 150 first
languages in our schools,

00:01:08.340 --> 00:01:11.990 align:middle line:84%
and so many aliens even
ET would go unnoticed.

00:01:11.990 --> 00:01:15.990 align:middle line:84%
Though if your tongue moved one
way in the land of your birth,

00:01:15.990 --> 00:01:20.083 align:middle line:84%
it must move another
now, awkward at first.

00:01:20.083 --> 00:01:21.500 align:middle line:84%
There are Blacks
here who've never

00:01:21.500 --> 00:01:26.600 align:middle line:84%
been to Africa, Africans who've
never heard a Baptist prayer,

00:01:26.600 --> 00:01:30.110 align:middle line:84%
much less the solemn
dirges of Lutherans

00:01:30.110 --> 00:01:35.900 align:middle line:84%
or how the artist formerly
known is some sort of Prince.

00:01:35.900 --> 00:01:38.300 align:middle line:84%
In the Anthology of
American Buddhist Poetry,

00:01:38.300 --> 00:01:41.450 align:middle line:84%
you will find not one
face of a Tibetan,

00:01:41.450 --> 00:01:45.380 align:middle line:84%
but they are here with
girls and boys named Tenzin,

00:01:45.380 --> 00:01:51.750 align:middle line:84%
and one, my son's good friend,
throws a hard, mean spiral.

00:01:51.750 --> 00:01:56.480 align:middle line:84%
Esmir is not the name of
a girl, but a Bosnian boy

00:01:56.480 --> 00:01:58.070 align:middle line:84%
who crouches at
a table and glues

00:01:58.070 --> 00:02:00.290 align:middle line:84%
the lamp together, and
later with my other son,

00:02:00.290 --> 00:02:04.190 align:middle line:84%
conspires on a book,
A Touch of Rabies:

00:02:04.190 --> 00:02:08.486 align:middle line:84%
A Heartbreaking Tale
of Good Dogs Gone Bad.

00:02:08.486 --> 00:02:11.150 align:middle line:90%


00:02:11.150 --> 00:02:15.110 align:middle line:84%
Why tell a soul of the
sieges that brought him here?

00:02:15.110 --> 00:02:18.470 align:middle line:84%
Or stories of the Dalai Lama
or of the temples destroyed

00:02:18.470 --> 00:02:21.890 align:middle line:84%
or troops of the warlords
in the streets of Somalia,

00:02:21.890 --> 00:02:27.980 align:middle line:84%
the borders dividing death from
safety, if not evil from good.

00:02:27.980 --> 00:02:30.680 align:middle line:90%
Say you're Egyptian or Haitian.

00:02:30.680 --> 00:02:34.250 align:middle line:84%
Here you're singular, not
part of a Big Apple ghetto.

00:02:34.250 --> 00:02:36.980 align:middle line:84%
If you're Chinese most
likely you're adopted

00:02:36.980 --> 00:02:41.450 align:middle line:84%
or else your parents studied
engineering at the U. Have

00:02:41.450 --> 00:02:42.650 align:middle line:90%
I mentioned the Mexicans?

00:02:42.650 --> 00:02:45.370 align:middle line:90%


00:02:45.370 --> 00:02:48.220 align:middle line:84%
In West Side Story,
the rumble starts

00:02:48.220 --> 00:02:51.760 align:middle line:84%
with Puerto Ricans and working
class whites in a high school

00:02:51.760 --> 00:02:53.290 align:middle line:90%
gym.

00:02:53.290 --> 00:02:55.690 align:middle line:84%
This year Maria is
still Natalie Wood

00:02:55.690 --> 00:02:59.560 align:middle line:84%
white to Jamaica's half-Black
Anita, and the Jets

00:02:59.560 --> 00:03:03.640 align:middle line:84%
sport Blacks, one Tibetan,
and my happa daughter

00:03:03.640 --> 00:03:07.060 align:middle line:84%
who still doesn't
question such casting

00:03:07.060 --> 00:03:10.510 align:middle line:84%
or why Bye, Bye Birdie
last year just might not

00:03:10.510 --> 00:03:13.870 align:middle line:84%
be the choice of half
the school for a song

00:03:13.870 --> 00:03:18.610 align:middle line:84%
and dance they could
take on as their own.

00:03:18.610 --> 00:03:21.790 align:middle line:84%
Still at the school
spring dance,

00:03:21.790 --> 00:03:25.660 align:middle line:84%
J.Lo and Ja Rule set the
awkward bump and grind

00:03:25.660 --> 00:03:29.620 align:middle line:84%
of junior high girls, and the
boys watch on the sidelines

00:03:29.620 --> 00:03:34.480 align:middle line:84%
as boys that age do, whether
Bosnian, Black, white, Somali,

00:03:34.480 --> 00:03:37.120 align:middle line:90%
or Tibetan.

00:03:37.120 --> 00:03:40.990 align:middle line:84%
I'm told we live in the
land of Great Lake Wobegon

00:03:40.990 --> 00:03:44.950 align:middle line:84%
where all the women are strong,
the men are good looking,

00:03:44.950 --> 00:03:47.830 align:middle line:84%
and the children
are above average,

00:03:47.830 --> 00:03:50.980 align:middle line:84%
and I always add
everyone's white.

00:03:50.980 --> 00:03:57.220 align:middle line:84%
Hey Tenzin, Nabil, go
tell Garrison: Not now.

00:03:57.220 --> 00:03:59.040 align:middle line:90%
Not quite.

00:03:59.040 --> 00:04:00.000 align:middle line:90%