we lament

August 13, 2017

We lament.

After a long, hot, southern, summer August turned bloody. Discourse flirted with violence. Festering systemic racism boiled over into the heresy of shouting voices, creating a cacophony of confusion and a wake of destruction.

And violence came; thrown heavy with thick clubs and parking garage levers. Violence came preceded by a flag symbolic of freedom. Violence came with torches in the night. Violence came with a speeding car into a crowd: a lynching.

A town birthed by a Founding Father has survived the two wars: one for a nation’s independence and the other over Lincoln’s “A House Divided:” political, economical, and moral division. Steeped in complex, tumultuous, sometimes ignoble history, remembrances and relics placed around town tell the storied passage of time. More recently known for its sophistication, education, and opportunity, it has enjoyed its isolated bubble, which burst on a bright Saturday afternoon revealing wounds that run deep.

Is it just the statue or the ground beneath where it sits? Does it matter where it rests or does it matter what it means? How do we remember without recreating? How do we honor without condoning? How do we keep fighting this civil discord?

The talking heads flocked (after reaching for a map) giving myopic commentary framed by their camera lens and their interpretation of history and symbolism. They will soon pack up and leave town, on to the next catastrophic headline. And in the wake battered and bruised, we are left to pick up the pieces.

In the midst of chaos and violence those sworn to protect the residents presented an immovable force. State and local police, with the backing of the National Guard, stood in the gap while the surgeons and physicians absorbed the injured; treating the patient in front of them. 

I am baffled by the phenomenal trust that, in the stupidity of inciting violence, law enforcement will sacrifice to protect you, first responders will be there to transport you, and medical professionals will be there to save you; regardless of your ideology, your skin color, or your heritage.

As a privileged, single, white, woman from the west coast - an outsider – I have attempted, over these past three years, to understand the history I never learned, and the culture I never experienced. I have found a people longing to love their neighbor and a community working to cross the divide. We did not seek nor incite the heresy and violence that slithered in.

And yet hope rises from the ashes. Hope that this will be the last civil discord we fight. Hope that tomorrow we remember.

We hope.