This is my response to what I heard from the President last night. 😭

What Did He See?

By Ivanildo C. Trindade

I saw a group of people armed with torches, echoing the words from the graves of forgotten haters, but what did he see?

I saw symbols proudly displayed, emblems of division from an era now condemned by all people of good will, but what did he see?

I saw a car leap forward like a blunt instrument, driven by nothing but a desire to inflict pain, but what did he see?

I saw men in pathetic uniforms, pretending to be heroes of a war in which the losing side seems to be hungry for a rematch, but what did he see?

I saw the anguished looks on the faces of bystanders forced to remember the atrocities committed against their ancestors, but what did he see?

I saw confusion and chaos, grief and lament for a time when little children could still be spared the rod of racial bigotry, but what did he see?

Were we looking at the same image or did our brain waves go haywire as they went from plasma to persuasion?

We are left to wonder whether what is seen is the real deal or only what we choose to see.

Is this ‘selecting seeing’ a new type of moral imperative for those too lazy to bend to the canons of common sense?

Did we see the same thing or do we simply have two sets of eyes — one irrevocably bent to scan the cry of solitary humans and another, burdened by a drive for self-preservation, which renders the owner incapable of noticing the river of tears already flooding our cities?

While the ancients said you have to see in order to believe, what irony such times bring — that one sees but refuses to believe while claiming everyone else sees what he sees. Or at least they ought to.

To reset the order of the cosmos, shouldn’t we at least demand to know what for the love of God did he truly see?

August 16, 2017