When my mother and new stepfather
moved from Nashville to a southern Alaska town,
I spent fifth grade trying to make new friends, rid myself
of Southern drawl, and avoid
getting beat up. And so,

to help
my classmates decide
which candy bar to eat first,
I suggest, Eeny, meeny miney moe,
catch a nigger by the toe…

What’s that?
No one has heard the word.

My accent quickly disappears.
I soon learn to feel
smarter than the tough native
kids with parents in the TB sanitarium.

Seward, 1953

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Here, thanks to  childhood relocation from Tennessee to Alaska,  the process of prejudice (and the role language plays) is crystallized, but not stymied.  Our deeply ingrained tendency to (mostly unconsciously) define “us vs. them” often displays a distressing  resilience, evolving right along with greater consciousness and sensitivity to diversity.  In this long-ago instance, it effortlessly made a localized “adjustment.”