Blossom or Bleed

History was made on Tuesday.  If growing up is looking past appearance, the United States may have grown up. 

There was a time in the USA when a man could murder another man, call it God’s will, and go home and have a beer —if the other man’s skin contained more melanin.  It was a chemical prejudice with a religious imprimatur upheld by preachers and police, among others.  But in the 200-plus year lead-up to Tuesday things have been changing, and maybe that’s God’s will too, as everything is in the world; or isn’t, which amounts to the same thing.

But what’s really uplifting is the fact that a black man who’s half white (but is a black man nevertheless; in the odd way humans parse things) is a nominee for president of the USA.  It’s so uplifting not because it was the will of God, but because it was the will of people.  And the people’s will —at least here on earth— is the will that makes the things of man blossom or bleed.

~ by Roshi Bob on June 5, 2008.