Today's topic begins with the letter "r" and ends with an "e." It is a four-letter word that's easy to say but hard to talk about, especially in "mixed" groups. This word has an "ac" in the middle, but this column about race is not about a speed contest with dragsters, world-class sprinters, greyhounds or thoroughbreds.

This is a column about the human race, but more specifically race when it comes to persons related by common descent or heredity. Anthropology and stereotypes have categorized people by distinctive and physical characteristics, but skin and hair color, facial shape and physical descriptors can tell lies.

The subject, however, is often the elephant in the living room, or the 800-pound gorilla everyone is afraid of. It's because we often have a hard time getting past the visual and inherited stereotypical thoughts when we should be attempting to explore the differences between people - but not as a contest or race to determine who is best or brightest.

People can generally be more readily identified, or grouped, by common history, culture, language and social and environmental influences, keeping in mind we are all members of the human race. It also needs to be said that all members of any race are not all alike. It would be idiotic to lump all Caucasians, blacks, Asians, Natives or whomever into the same basket of identical traits and actions for that race.

One of the most uncomfortable aspects of talking about race is the limited knowledge we have about one another. Ignorance, then, can breed contempt, which can be a part of the mix or foundation of racism.

Niizh Makwa is a unique information provider, or educator, even though some might reference him as a subversive and radical supporter of political and social revolution. Makwa, author of "Red Man's Diaries," might even like the title, as he is at the least a rebel with a cause.

An enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain band of Ojibwe, Makwa (Two Bears), was born in North Dakota in 1978. Also known as L. Joseph Belgrade Jr., he calls himself a Warrior Poet. He's written and recently released 50 poems in just over 100 pages.

His book should be mandatory reading for non-Natives, even though his words will strike many of them as overly harsh. For American Indians, the work will be more of a not-so-funny recreational read, a familiar visit of shock and awe of the not-so- best kind of life of an Indian on and off the reservation.

Makwa's poems won't give anyone a warm fuzzy feeling, as he doesn't rhyme love sonnets. He is, however, telling reality stories, sometimes with threats of retaliation and almost always with frustration and anger. That's the education in this Red Man's diary, and why it would be an important read for those who have for far too many years ignored the voices and cries of indigenous people.

The book is an easy read in understanding and following the words, themes and messages. It is not such an easy read in the not-so-polite or not-politically-correct language used to transfer thoughts from a troubled mind onto the printed page.

"Are my words really subversive, or are they just too tough? / I ain't never gonna stop - I was created to piss the system off / As always, that's just the way things are gonna be / I won't stop until the world knows the truth about me."

Those four lines come from "Till the World Knows," a poem toward the end of the book that sums up a continuing theme of stereotyping, racism and realities of life for those not born white.

Self truths and experiences of Indian life, and an in-your-face attitude, spill out of Makwa's psyche in "What You See is What You Get."

"I feel no shame for who and what I am, and I don't want anyone's so-called 'helping hand.' Hate me - go on, you go right ahead and hate me more 'cause you'll never get my words out of your head. Hate my ways, if you must though they haven't killed me yet and remember, with me - what you see is what you get."

While there is much tragedy in Makwa's poems, there is also reality and scads of words with deep meaning. One of the most thought-provoking works is "Conscience," in which Makwa makes clear the impact Natives have on non-Indians (especially in the final five lines):

"I am called by many names / The world knows me as Indigenous - Society knows me as Minority - Governments know me as Indian - but You know me as Conscience."

The human race does have a conscience. We just don't always own it.

(You can reach Editor John Irby at 250-8266 or john.irby@bismarcktribune.com and go to www.bismarcktribune.com/blog /?w=thepaper&e_id=2671/ to read his blog.)