The Mathematics of Equality

Equality’s overrated, overstated, misunderstood

Gays want to equal straights

Women want to equal men

The poor want to share the rich’s plates

Because only then is there world without out sin

And, now, equality’s got black people moving into a white neighborhood

We’re equal, we’re equal they scream as they go

The whites pack up

As the blacks settle in

“No negroe shall drink from my cup

Let him steal from his own kin”

Equality sends the white man running, children in stow

The problem

You see

Is this

Black is black

And gay is gay

Women are women

Different from whites, from straights, from men

In at least one crucial way

So to pretend that one is the other

Is childish and wrong

As two will never equal four

And four will never equal five

Inequality is a result of the differences that provide distinction to each of our lives

Only if we understand that each woman is our sister and each man our brother

All descended from the same earthly mother

Will we be able to sing that song

The one forgotten so long

Of peace not war

And feelings of camaraderie

Not racial inequality

The next time a black man comes knocking on a white man’s door