They say everything can be replaced
Yet every distance is not near
So I remember every face
Of every man who put me here
-Bob Dylan
I Shall Be Released
I'm watching much of the Impeachment hearings. My attention wanes on occasion. It's tedious. But then we knew that. This time around, the division is palpable. It is wearily all-consuming. Both sides see the same set of facts differently. They dispute the rules; they insult one another's intelligence, they profess outrage. They know what they know.
But what do we see when we see them? What gets triggered when they exercise their sense of their own power. I see the trucks.
In carefully answering an interviewer's question about trust, with regard to one you might fear, Nobel laureate Toni Morrison once said, "when the trucks roll, I still think they will put me on the truck."
This chilling view is probably more common than we might think. In an atmosphere of fear, we can convince ourselves that being too careful is not an option.
Those who seem to be able to rationalize many of the actions of the current President of the United States are the faces. Some look like mild-mannered folks, some like caring mothers and wives. Their appearance belies their intention. We've seen this before and sadly, it is upon us again.
I see something else too. I see the accused sitting in a courtroom, life on trial, knowing full well the verdict has been decided. Knowing that nothing said or demonstrated in that courtroom will have any impact on the outcome of their fate. Those scenes were repeated in our collective history time and again. Instead of trucks rolling, lynch mobs boiled up from the red dirt of our countryside. Forced confessions flourished. Scars continuously ignored, the victims of injustice had no recourse but to accept the fate conjured up by the imbalance of power.
I see a child riding on a railcar. The ground is snow-covered, The guard outside the car speaks his language. He may even know the family. They do not speak on this day. What goes through their minds? What awaits at the end of this crucial day? led both to position themselves accordingly that morning? Wheels turn.
The railcar yields to a truck that is waiting to take one of them to their future. They will never speak again.
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