There are so many reasons I’ve never wanted to write about this. Or even think about it, although I do, almost every day.
I suppose for some it’s like having a serious, probably life-threatening disease. The healthy survivor’s instinct to not be defined by his illness, rather to set it in its rightful place, just one more piece of his psychological and physical baggage. Total bullshit of course, except in the sense of forcing one to get the hell off the couch and on with one’s life.
The blood wasn’t just on the water by then – 40 years ago today - it was everywhere. In the air, raining death. Splattered across every piece of paper legislation, speech, report, note to whatever front. Eyes bloodshot from weed, rage, pain, death, and so much more to come.
For me, as for many, it began on that ellipse listening to those words, the deep comfort of being surrounded by a quarter of a million decent people of like heart. I was very young, carrying a sign, as we did, mine about equal housing, a sign that was almost as tall as I was. An overwhelming sense of having found, and come, home.
In my own family I was already discomfiting outsider. Too uppity [precisely] with my words and objections and inappropriate observations. But I was also middle child, perfect in every other way. Perfect sibling, perfect student, trying to balance the rejection engendered by my “views” with approval for my “successes.”
The five year arc that ended 40 years ago today was, for many, more than just defining moment. It forged, defined, bloodied and, two months later, destroyed much of the best of the best of us. Minds, hearts and bodies.
A personal arc written in acronyms, SCLC, SNCC, SDS [the latter short-lived, as full of shit as stupidity, and so very much like what passes for the left now]. And, even within, the polarities of turf and power had already begun tearing the possibilities of hope apart. Newer sensibilities, not afraid to use the rhetoric and tools of the enemy, taunted the “idealistic” agendas of those old school acronyms.
Soon a sense of chaos and unraveling took hold. But then, suddenly, a tying up of sorts. An incipient recognition that the blood spilled and spilling on foreign shores and urban streets was of a piece. Collateral, and often designed, damage from the wider war that was being waged by common enemy. The language changed with this recognition and, with this recognition and these words, more blood.
I suppose for some it’s like having a serious, probably life-threatening disease. The healthy survivor’s instinct to not be defined by his illness, rather to set it in its rightful place, just one more piece of his psychological and physical baggage. Total bullshit of course, except in the sense of forcing one to get the hell off the couch and on with one’s life.
The blood wasn’t just on the water by then – 40 years ago today - it was everywhere. In the air, raining death. Splattered across every piece of paper legislation, speech, report, note to whatever front. Eyes bloodshot from weed, rage, pain, death, and so much more to come.
For me, as for many, it began on that ellipse listening to those words, the deep comfort of being surrounded by a quarter of a million decent people of like heart. I was very young, carrying a sign, as we did, mine about equal housing, a sign that was almost as tall as I was. An overwhelming sense of having found, and come, home.
In my own family I was already discomfiting outsider. Too uppity [precisely] with my words and objections and inappropriate observations. But I was also middle child, perfect in every other way. Perfect sibling, perfect student, trying to balance the rejection engendered by my “views” with approval for my “successes.”
The five year arc that ended 40 years ago today was, for many, more than just defining moment. It forged, defined, bloodied and, two months later, destroyed much of the best of the best of us. Minds, hearts and bodies.
A personal arc written in acronyms, SCLC, SNCC, SDS [the latter short-lived, as full of shit as stupidity, and so very much like what passes for the left now]. And, even within, the polarities of turf and power had already begun tearing the possibilities of hope apart. Newer sensibilities, not afraid to use the rhetoric and tools of the enemy, taunted the “idealistic” agendas of those old school acronyms.
Soon a sense of chaos and unraveling took hold. But then, suddenly, a tying up of sorts. An incipient recognition that the blood spilled and spilling on foreign shores and urban streets was of a piece. Collateral, and often designed, damage from the wider war that was being waged by common enemy. The language changed with this recognition and, with this recognition and these words, more blood.
Read those words from April 4, 1967, one year, yes, to the very day before that day and you can understand how the stilling of that voice was necessary requisite for the 40 years that followed.
But there it still is, a silent cancer that still festers and grows, extending its parasitic reach within. The friend who once manned barricades now wittily dismissing the fallen in Iraq as being, after all, just the children of Nascar dads. The other friend who once posed fetchingly in red heels atop a tank in Nicaragua during the war, now supporting Hillary and screeching angrily, just like her candidate, at anyone who asks her why. Those whose despair has ossified into creed or academia or corporate boardrooms or soundbites.
There are a few of us left who fear the arc might be repeating itself, the cycle of despair, voice, wisdom, strength, blood, despair, surrender masked as irony. But the only irony I can find is that this time the ones with the bullets, billy clubs and napalm are those who, crippled by the pain that has consumed them, traversed that arc and are now unable to bear the sight of others daring to walk it, or the very few of us daring to walk it again.
But there it still is, a silent cancer that still festers and grows, extending its parasitic reach within. The friend who once manned barricades now wittily dismissing the fallen in Iraq as being, after all, just the children of Nascar dads. The other friend who once posed fetchingly in red heels atop a tank in Nicaragua during the war, now supporting Hillary and screeching angrily, just like her candidate, at anyone who asks her why. Those whose despair has ossified into creed or academia or corporate boardrooms or soundbites.
There are a few of us left who fear the arc might be repeating itself, the cycle of despair, voice, wisdom, strength, blood, despair, surrender masked as irony. But the only irony I can find is that this time the ones with the bullets, billy clubs and napalm are those who, crippled by the pain that has consumed them, traversed that arc and are now unable to bear the sight of others daring to walk it, or the very few of us daring to walk it again.
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