Minneapolis-Bastille Revisited?
Updated: Jan 28, 2021

Centuries of separation
Have mollified any condemnation
Of Parisian protestors who dared to defy law and royal order.
The protest of the impoverished and the intellectuals
Now graces historic tomes
Which idealize these heroes' sacrosanct infamy.
Surely someone spoke then
Of their reckless disregard for orderly restraint
And their savage, apoplectic embrace of long-festering wrath.
How was tonight different?
Get replaced by rasping cries for justice and reparation.
Our revolutionary tea carousing
In Boston Harbour is now the glorious
Stuff of patriotic legends.
Our ancestors' rage was undeniably justifiable.
We do not question its merit or fame
Yet tonight’s precinct rebellion is overlaid with our national disdain.
How can that be?
Are we nothing more than bald-faced hypocrites
Finding exceptionalism in our forbearers’ identical deeds?
When can we dig our collective selves
From the lies promulgated over centuries
Of shameless crimes against those
We needed to claim our constitutional comfort
And seal our young nation's success
Upon the broken backs of immigrants
Who did not seek to breach our parapets
Before they were stolen from their distant homes
To be sold into our bartered living Hell.
We cannot cleanse our consciousness
Without giving voice to their anger.
These equally true Americans long since earned their right
To the rugged idealism and freedom
We wear on our beaked red caps
Which scream recycled slogans extolling the myth of greatness
Wherein we crown thy good with brotherhood.
Tonight's rioters see that we do not yet deserve such a crown
But it is now the only legacy left for us to cajole.

Photo from westport-news.com