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Related: About this forumMathematics || Spoken Word by @holliepoetry
A poem on immigration based on personal experience and studies. The poem owes a lot to a book by economist Philippe Legrain called Immigrants: Your Country Needs Them.
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Mathematics || Spoken Word by @holliepoetry (Original Post)
Xipe Totec
Dec 2014
OP
stone space
(6,498 posts)1. Excellent!
Kalidurga
(14,177 posts)2. That is beautiful
it must be poetry day. I wrote one, read one in another thread, and now spoken word.
Plucketeer
(12,882 posts)3. Loved this!
Thanks for posting.l
Shoonra
(523 posts)4. And PLEASE post the text!
Yes, yes, yes! and would someone please post the text of this poem.
Xipe Totec
(43,890 posts)5. Here is the text
http://lybio.net/tag/hollie-mcnish-mathematics-text/
Hollie McNish Mathematics
He says
those god damn Pakistanis and their goddamn corner shops
Built a shop on every corner took our British workers jobs
He says those Goddamn Chinese and their goddamn china shops
I tell him theyre from Vietnam but he doesnt give a toss
I ask him what was there before that damn Japan mans shop
He stares at me and dreams a scene of British workers jobs
Of full time full employment before the Goddamn boats all came
Where everybody went to work full time every day
A British Business stood their first he claims before the Irish came
Now British people lost their jobs and bloody Turkish are there to blame
I ask him how he knows that fact he says because its true
I ask him how he knows the fact he says he read it in the news
Everytime a Somalian comes here they take a job from us
The mathematics one for one, from us to them it just adds up
He bites his cake and sips is brew and says again he knows the spot
The Goddamn Carribeans came and now good folk here dont have jobs
I ask him what was there before the goddamn Persian curtain shop
I show him architectures plans of empty goddamn plots of land
I show him the historic maps
A bit of sand, a barren land
There was no goddamn shop before those Pakistanis came and planned
Man
Im sick of crappy mathematics
Cos I love a bit of sums
I spent three years into economics
And I geek out over calculus
And when I meet these paper claims
That one of every new that came
Takes away ones daily wage
I desperately want to scream
Your maths is stuck in primary
Cos one who comes here also spends
And one who comes here also lends
And some who comes here also tend
To set up work which employs them
And all your balance sheets and trends
Work with numbers not with men
And all your goddamn heated talk
Ignores the trade the Polish brought
Ignores the men they gave work to
Not plumbing jobs but further too
Ignores the ones they buy stock from
Accountants, builders, on and on
And I know its nice to have someone
To blame our lack of jobs upon
But immigrations not as plain
Despite the sums inside your brain
As one for one, as him or you
As if he goes, theyll employ you
Cos sometimes one that comes makes two
And sometimes one can add three more
And sometimes two times two is much much more
Than four
And most times immigrants bring more
Than minuses.
malthaussen
(17,205 posts)6. Offers one answer to the question:
"Is life a zero-sum game?"
-- Mal