This Concludes Our Broadcast Day

Used to be when the television got tired
it would briefly display a waving flag
while an old racist song played
(they always played an instrumental and few had heard
or even knew about the racist verse)
and then all would become a burst of static
or the soul-cry from the Emergency Broadcast System
while on screen you’d see a stereotype, what they called
an Injun
in what they called
a war bonnet
displayed in the center of a bullseye graphic.
Now they just turn their time over to sell, sell, sell.
I’ve always thought the old way was more honest
about who we are,
but was it?