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They were invisible men. Numbers and not names. They had lost the privilege of being seen, existing on the periphery from the rest of the world, lost and forgotten.
Every day the world reminded him, both directly and subtly, that because he was black his life held different rules, and Jesse behaved the way he did in defiance of this reality.
what Mira learned that day was how easy it was to let someone convince you of their truth instead of believing in your own.
Who could look at this and not see it for what it was? To not see the slave system the cabin represented? Instead of a slave cabin they saw a modest-looking room they could have lived in and ignored the truth. None of them wanted to see anything else because the narrative that had been created affirmed whatever falsehoods people wanted to believe.
To marvel at the twisted limbs of the surrounding trees, their branches climbing toward the sky, toward their heaven, and not see lynching trees.
She felt shame for participating, for coming and being complicit. She felt shame for the circumstances that had led to a place like this existing. Shame for the realization that even after all these years of progress, this was where we’d come, to this corrupted version of the past we all thought we’d left behind.
