Reversal
If this summer were a novel or a play, this weekend was the reversal. The story arc of our frail network of activists, dreamers, and freedom fighters was on the rise. We had hopeful, even joyful events to report to our growing list of readers. Our state legislators saved the rural hospitals by a neck. We came together in Brush to celebrate Independence Day, and we learned that we’re not as much alone as we thought. We conspired in secret with a band of gallant young women, Las Estrellas, to send a message to Cory Gardner to tell him that he could not hide forever from the Dream of Freedom.
It was glorious. It was America as it should be. It was what democracy looks like.
Four days after the Yuma parade a man, an ordinary man, a useless man, a man of great violence and little soul, consoling himself with the mantra “At least I’m White!” drove his car into a crowd of people and killed Heather Heyer dead. It didn’t happen here, but we all feel the weight of the event.
You know the story by now. Civil War monuments like Charlottesville’s mounted portrait of Robert E. Lee were not erected to commemorate the American Civil War at all, but to resurrect its memory much later when Black Americans began demanding their civil rights. City Councils across the nation have begun removing them. White Supremacists gathered in Charlottesville to defend General Lee with Tiki Torches and semi-automatic weapons. Counter-protesters massed to oppose them. The police stood by. And that was when that wasted man, that man we will not name, made his statement, tried to erect his own bloody monument to his own feckless mediocrity.
We may be coming to dangerous times. There’s analysis our other article. Everyone should read it and be warned. But first, let us remember what we have accomplished. This is our America. We know what it should be. It is glorious. We will fight for it if we must. And we are Fearless.
Originally published in The Weathervane No 13 on August 17, 2017. [Subscribe]
