Dominique Christina
Dominique Christina – TRANSCRIPT
There was nothing symbolic about Martin Luther King being shot. No metaphor could capture the sting a community felt when yet another assassination tore at the resolve of folk who lived in their heads and dreamed of “some day,” and one day, a bullet … can punctuate a movement – but I don’t think about that day.
Not even when my son comes marching with images of the man embellished in crayon, and the kind of exuberance that only youthfulness and naivete can sustain. He wants to tell me about the dream Martin had. And the evil in the world that took it. He runs it all down for me, wide-eyed and mortified in these conversations with history where great men who dared to jut out were struck down; and the gross improprieties of it all; and the incredible immorality of it all; and the needlessness and senselessness of it all, can’t believe how damn ungodly we were.
He needs me to do something about it. To wrestle the past down into fairytales and attach “And they all lived happily ever after” at the end – but I don’t think about that day. Or the man … who steadied his hand, shouldered his rifle, and put Martin in his scope. A man who woke up that morning, and ate his eggs, and drank his coffee with a mission statement curdling his veins. A man who knew he would take a life that day. A big life. A bigger-than-can-be-believed life because all life is bigger than can be believed.
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