Ring Shout

by P. Djèlí Clark

I look down at the dead Ku Klux. The monster’s bone-white skin is already turned gray, scraps peeling and floating into the air like ashes of paper, turning to dust before our eyes. That’s what happens to a Ku Klux when its killed. Body just crumbles away, as if it don’t belong here—which I assure you it does not. In about twenty minutes won’t be no blood or bones or nothing—just dust. Make it feel like you fighting shadows.

“White folk earn something from that hate. Might not be wages. But knowing we on the bottom and they set above us—just as good, maybe better.”

“My people make money and we are ‘greedy capitalists.’ We call for an equitable society, and we are ‘dirty Bolsheviks.’ Those who wish to hate Jews will always find justification. They hung poor Mr. Frank here in Georgia after all, despite reason or the law.” Chef grunts. “Reason and law don’t mean much when white folk want their way.”

“You see, the hate they give is senseless. They already got power. Yet they hate those over who they got control, who don’t really pose a threat to them. Their fears aren’t real—just insecurities and inadequacies. Deep down they know that. Makes their hate like … watered-down whiskey.

They like the places where we hurt. They use it against us. The words of the girl, my other self from the dream place, strikes with sudden understanding. The places where we hurt. Where we hurt. Not just me, all of us, colored folk everywhere, who carry our wounds with us, sometimes open for all to see, but always so much more buried and hidden deep. I remember the songs that come with all those visions. Songs full of hurt. Songs of sadness and tears. Songs pulsing with pain. A righteous anger and cry for justice. But not hate.