Page 11

By Jack Joseph Smith

The Other Song That is as close as you get Cause your an Americam you think hatred is somehow sculpured,, worked on While you got it all wrong Tit for tat remember that They don't give shit to a Palistiani The Arabs know we are not them Funny how we end up like the Jews All interpertuped and feared At the same time; hold it; don't start thinking,, I mean this instant,, the same Know I know what it is not religion Been trying to figer; its the colors, that's it isn't it, yeah, the colors I can't hear any other place to go... There it is

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

American self-understanding is measured against Palestine, Arabs, Jews, religion, and color, with politics reduced to fear and misrecognition.

The poem keeps interrupting itself so that political identity becomes a sensory problem as much as an ideological one. The handwritten correction from religion toward color sharpens the page's discomfort: the speaker is trying to identify what is seen, feared, and mistaken.

Claude

The poem forces American self-perception through the lens of Palestine, reducing geopolitics to its emotional components: fear, color, and the failure to see clearly what is actually in front of you.