The Hammer Falls Again

The hammer was only doing its job, it said. It was there to keep the nails in place. So day after day, it did the work it was made for.

It found them, wherever they were, and pounded them down.

Over and over, the hammer fell.

It rang out, cold and clear, in the sound of chains being forged, and in voices calling at the auction blocks.

With every lash of the whip, every torch in the night, every muffled blow, the hammer fell again.

It kept on: in signs posted in store windows, in sneering words, in ruined city streets, in crowded prisons and dark alleys ending in despair.

In the flashing lights of patrol cars, the pounding of fists on doors, the back rooms in police stations, the blows rang out, unending, remorseless.

Mothers wept. Strong men were taught to keep their eyes down. Children were held close and warned in whispers.

Who held the hammer? Were they so used to its weight, that they hardly thought of it? It could just be used, whenever one of the nails stepped out of place. For the one with the hammer, a black man is not a man. He is a nail, a threat, a thing.

Blow by blow, a prison rose, held together by cold iron and stone. It squatted, heavy and arrogant, sure of its rights.

But within the prison, old wounds festered; stifled words and broken dreams turned in their cages, pressing, breaking through, then caged again. If you stood still, you could feel the ground shaking, and just hear the rumbling of a million cries of grief and rage.

Then one day, on a city street, down on the pavement, a black man lay and gasped for air. The white man kneeling upon his neck looked bored, relaxed. He was a hammer. He was doing his job. He was not killing a man.

There it was, for all to see, horrible and heartless,

Then the ground shook, and the rumbling grew louder and yet louder, and cracks spread across the ground, until with a furious roar the prison doors flew open wide.

The air shook with the shouts of four hundred years, the fury of a thousand blows, as the people rose up and screamed at the hammer, for God's sake, stop! And a flood of people filled the streets, chanting, holding signs, shouting, enough! We want no more of this!

And the ones who held the hammer turned in fury, and raised it high, ready to strike.

How will this end? None of us can say. As I write this, the streets are filled with people, calling for an end, while above them the hammer still is poised, ready to fall once more.

In this moment, I think we each need to ask: am I holding a sign, standing with them below?

Or am I above, holding the hammer?