But then, we can never rest.
Until the killing of black men, black mothers' sons
Is as important as the killing of white men, white mothers' sons
Even if this day ever came, we still couldn't rest. Because someone, somewhere (actually, many people, many places) will always be denied freedom and justice. For every good deed done by one person, an evil deed is done by another. We may be striving, above all, for balance, so that the bad cannot outweigh the good. But in the end, we must conclude that the badness, the evil, the cruelty, they persist, and always will account for at least as much of the world as goodness and kindness and generosity. Love and hate are intrinsically connected. Self-preservation drives both the oppressor and the liberator.
And yet...we go on. We can acknowledge that evil (though I hesitate to use that word given its Christian connotations) will continue to exist no matter how hard we try to fight it, while still refusing to let it win. The problem comes when we recognize that our fight creates new evil as it destroys old evil. But if we give up, what's the point of anything. I think Phil Ochs said it best:
Can't live proud enough to die when I'm gone
So I guess I'll have to do it while I'm here
