How Soon is Now?

When you say it's gonna happen now
 Well when exactly do you mean?
See I've already waited too long
 And all my hope is gone
--The Smiths

I don't expect this to stop. But can we at least stop pretending? I accept that history and the apparently inexhaustible malice of black America means a debt incurred in perpetuity. We will pay (as long as there is a "we"), in money, peace, dignity--with our lives, yes, for this deficit between our demonstrated humanity and theirs.

The wages of the sin of slavery are--another sort of slavery, visited upon the descendants of all. We are slaves to fear and loathing. We are silent as slaves before the endless  humiliations of the bulked-up, uninhibited brute descendants of the poor brutes our forefathers broke down and chained. Force the detachment on yourself, and marvel at the absurd symmetry of our tragedy. Imagine the hatred in the hearts of those slaves. Do they see its redemption? Do they smile? Could they ever have imagined?

But when do we get to just tell the truth? When will the last laughable shred of plausibility fall away from the tyrannical order? How much hell has to be raised before the heavens fall?