the history books

We wonder at the atrocities of our yesterdays

from our seat at today’s table,

history books spread open to images of

humans traded in chains,

skeletal bodies in Nazi pits,

little Ruby parting a sea of picketers.

“How could they not know?”

we wonder at the audacity.

“How could they not realize they were on the wrong side?”

But bigotry isn’t built in a day.

The creeping up of egotism never comes with a warning label—

It takes over your soul one perfectly packaged lie at a time:

As a soothing balm for your fears,

As a solution to all who feel threatening,

As a guarantee to protect you and yours,

As a defense for your god and your tribe.

The lies sound so harmless because

they don’t specify the cost,

whose cost.

And if they do, you don’t hear it

because your fears drown out

the cries for mercy.

You don’t see it because your

vision is so filtered by your Self.

No, bigotry doesn’t happen overnight.

It’s built like a suit of armor,

one plate layered over one plate,

until the only thing left between you and your neighbor

is a metal wall of indifference to

protect from outsiders and

the toxic empathy that threatens your resolve

to stay blind to their humanness.

Future generations will look at the words and images

in their history books and wonder,

“How could they not have known?”

So to my children and children’s children:

Let there be a record that

I did not sacrifice my faith in a humble King

At the altar of a controlling one.

And I never believed that your life mattered more

just because you were mine or

that your humanity mattered more

just because you were mine.

Without hindsight

or the clarity of retrospect,

in real time

there were many who knew—

and I will keep looking to them.

I will keep hoping with them and

voting with them.

I will keep locking arms with them

so you can look back with pride and know that

I knew.