Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

The Race Bone

The Race Bone That old man proclaims, “I don’t have a racist bone in my body.” But where in the body does the race bone lie? Can we find it on an X-ray? Is it locked inside the spine? Does it make its home among the vertebral bones? Or is it hidden in the femur? In the ball-and-socket joints of the hip? Is it in the orbit of bones that surround the eye? Does it reside in the ribcage embedded like a bullet? Does it lie in wait beneath the flat bones of the skull? Where and when does the race bone begin? Can we trace its origins in the embryonic skeleton lighter than a honeybee? Can we see it in an ultrasound; or does it begin before fetus, before zygote, when being is composed of only the dust of soul? If we follow our lineage like a creek to the earliest headstream 49 could we sweep away the sand and clay uncover it in the marrow of our history? Here in our ancestral burying grounds nothing remains but a mosaic of rain-washed bones strewn among the stones where once walls stood. The broken cranium— what memories were cradled there? What songs? http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Appalachian Review University of North Carolina Press

The Race Bone

Elkins, Ansel
Appalachian Review , Volume 48 (3) – Mar 22, 2021
Download PDF
2 pages

Loading next page...
 
/lp/university-of-north-carolina-press/the-race-bone-5Yp8vCVBqo
Publisher
University of North Carolina Press
Copyright
Copyright © Berea College
ISSN
2692-9244
eISSN
2692-9287

Abstract

That old man proclaims, “I don’t have a racist bone in my body.” But where in the body does the race bone lie? Can we find it on an X-ray? Is it locked inside the spine? Does it make its home among the vertebral bones? Or is it hidden in the femur? In the ball-and-socket joints of the hip? Is it in the orbit of bones that surround the eye? Does it reside in the ribcage embedded like a bullet? Does it lie in wait beneath the flat bones of the skull? Where and when does the race bone begin? Can we trace its origins in the embryonic skeleton lighter than a honeybee? Can we see it in an ultrasound; or does it begin before fetus, before zygote, when being is composed of only the dust of soul? If we follow our lineage like a creek to the earliest headstream 49 could we sweep away the sand and clay uncover it in the marrow of our history? Here in our ancestral burying grounds nothing remains but a mosaic of rain-washed bones strewn among the stones where once walls stood. The broken cranium— what memories were cradled there? What songs?

Journal

Appalachian Review – University of North Carolina Press

Published: Mar 22, 2021

There are no references for this article.