Baltimore, Chapter Three Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

Baltimore.scopnd edition
They came here, the black population, from the south, to get work
In factories and the rate of pay for them the poor from the south,
Was good and a neighbourhood evolved, there was progress and
Peace thriving working class districts. Capitalism is not about safety,
Shifting luck the industry moved abroad where wages are cheaper,
And where should the people go? Boarded up shops, factories and
Broken windows, where should the people go? Restless youth no
One has given them any education, where should the people go?
Being black and suffering the stigma of having been sons of slaves to
Break out of the stigma of inferiority is not easy and often its ends
In frustrated and depressed violence.
The black people of Baltimore are suffering the same contempt as my
Parents did in Norway simply for being working class. Askew is
The capitalist foundation, force into life a socialist party, a force if needed
Without compromise, a political transformation. When politicians say
they work for the middle- class people; we know the black working- class
is blissfully excluded.