We Remember the Bodies
We Remember the Bodies
A Black Eyed History Lesson (usually I post on Friday but I decided to send this out a couple days early)
Titus Kaphar. Behind the Myth of Benevolence, 2014
We will live with these ghosts. No matter the outcome, we will be haunted because we’ve buried the bodies beneath the foundation of the house and their voices won’t be silenced. We have bricked up the souls behind the drywall. They move throughout the insulation and we breathe their dried husks through the air ducts. There is no filter strong enough to rid us of this history. There’s not a slab of concrete thick enough or rows of shiplap wide enough to seal its lips shut. It’s baked into the windows and permeates the light. The spirits creak beneath the floorboards. They will not be ignored.
Find an Audio Recording of This Black Eyed History Lesson Above
When thousands of good, God-fearing Americans pour into an arena to hear a man who 27 women have publicly accused of sexual misconduct, its not because there’s something strange in the water. It’s not because there’s something mysterious floating in the air. It’s because there’s something in the marrow of the bone. Something in the blood, something genetic in our history. We have always been this barbaric. Though we have not always turned a blind eye when a candidate running for the office of the presidency is the one they’ve accused – not because we believed the women, but because we’ve always distanced ourselves from the target of any pointed finger lest we ourselves get caught in the crosshairs. We used to like to keep up appearances. But now, just go look in the mirror, and… oh my! How we’ve let ourselves go. There was a time when, at the very least, we required a candidate to keep it on the down low, away from innocent eyes. We didn’t like folks who aired their dirty laundry. But these days we pay to see it, to touch it, to wear it, to meme it. There are no consequences for such deplorable etiquette. All are welcomed to eat with their elbows and feet on the table.
Thousands of God’s children traveled miles to gather together to support a criminal, knowing all the accusations, knowing all the indictments, but forgetting the newsreels of his flagrant disregard for law and order. They came dressed in MAGA red from head to toe to give their full support to a man whom they heard spewing vulgarities over an Access Hollywood hot mic. His words were as good as a confession. He bragged about doing the most lascivious things to women, and he boasted about having a right to do so because he was famous. He admitted it was a problem but he couldn’t help himself. Still, they voted for him because they believed he was called by God and everybody’s got their flaws and nobody’s perfect and boys will be boys and that’s just locker room talk, and he didn’t mean it. They forgave him because Christ is within him and who of us is without sin? They forgave him without need of repentance because they’d read the Book of Revelations and they were sure he was a sign of the Second Coming – heck, he just might be the Second Coming.
So they came to Madison Square Garden to sing his praises and wave their hands in worship of this orange calf, their idol. Each of them is a brick in his Tower of Babel. They listened to his every word, listened with all their hearts – and they applauded and whooped and stomped and cried with joy. On the way out the doors, they will tell the press they were there for him and his polices. They are voting for him, the fraudulent and bankrupted felon, because of his economic polices. They are voting for the guy who promised to build a wall to protect them. They think these reasons explain everything. They look at the camera in earnest. They want us to know they are not racist, and they don’t hate women. Indeed, they are pro-family and pro-life. They tell us they don’t see color. They insist the unborn have rights.