You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
A Black man hanging from a tree in the south.
It’s symbolism that makes you wince.
It’s a bible set on fire. It’s a brick through stained glass. It’s a hungry child that nobody feeds.
A black man hanging from a tree in the south.
If I know nothing else about this story, the idea of it stops me cold.
If you just say that sentence, an image so dark, so sad, explodes like black paint across the soft tissue of my brain.
A tree. A sheet. A black man. A mysterious nauseating death.
Like a cold wind blowing through the basement of America’s shame, today’s headline opened old wounds that never truly heal.
A black man found hanging from a tree in Mississippi.
The headline is salt in the eye.
Is it 2015? Is it 1965?
Does it matter?
Does an image as visceral, as poignant as hate have an expiration date?
It’s not like racism is milk in your dairy case.
Use by Sept 14th or discard.
A black man hanging from a tree in the deep south.
It’s painful like open heart surgery without anesthesia.
Is it racially motivated? Is it a crime at all? Did the man hang himself? Was it an accident?
There are way too many questions to possibly know the answer.
But the fact that a black man in Mississippi is found hanging from a tree is enough for the FBI to engage.
According to published reports; the sheriff’s office in Claiborne County, Mississippi, had organized a search for the man, who had been missing since March 2nd. Authorities said the man’s body was found with a bed sheet tied around his neck and a skull cap on his head, hanging from a tree. The man’s hands were not tied up.
FBI Supervisory Special Agent Jason Pack said that it’s unclear what happened to the man, and “it is too early to say what happened and speculate.”
It is too early to speculate. But the image is what it is.
Let’s say I changed some words around.
An Eskimo is found hanging from an igloo with whale blubber around his neck.
That too conjures an image. It’s a Saturday night skit.
Nobody is alarmed. Nobody is sickened to their stomachs. Nobody is calling the FBI.
I am sorry a black man was found hanging dead from a sheet in a tree in the south.
I hope it was a suicide. I hope it was an accident.
I hope it was anything but a homicide.
America is tired. We have endured an interminable assault on our collective consciousness.
From Ferguson to Hoodies to Black Lives Matter.
I am an American. I am weary.
Like the expiration date on the spoiled milk, I just want to discard the memories that turn my stomach.
Life’s Crazy™