This appears in a pre-2010 issue
of cc&d magazine.
Saddle-stitched issues are no longer
printed, but you can requesting it
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The church bell seems to toll forever. It rings slowly again and again, and in the air, a miasma covers the city. We can’t see the beautiful bronze Statue of Liberty. Our Lady, Goddess of Liberty and Hope, is invisible now. And we are blind and filled with fear and rage.
How can we heal? What do we feel? We only hear the incessant, repeated strokes of the bell. Yes, it rings slowly again and again. When will it cease?
The city’s a desert now and a sirocco of despair approaches, a dark, oppressive wind and perhaps a storm too threatening to swaddle us in a cage of injustice.
In the distance, the bell tolls again and again and we remember some of the shattered faces-black faces of those killed or seriously injured by the police:
ELEANOR BUMPURS
ABNER LOUIMA
ANTOINE REID
AMADOU DIALLO
PATRICK DORISMOND
OUSMANE ZONGO
TIMOTHY STANSBURY JR.
And
SEAN BELL.
We pray for them and all other known and anonymous victims too-black, Hispanic (we remember ANTHONY BAEZ), white, and... Some were innocent. Others were troubled. None deserved to die or suffer serious injury.
The bell tolls again and again and the police continue to use excessive force against minorities. (There is police brutality against all races, but minorities still seem to be profiled.)
We can never know all the innocent black men and women killed or injured in a wasteland of police brutality. In this urban wilderness, our good police officers, of whom there are many, I believe, are obscured, our citizens oblivious of their presence. We must search for them. And they must find us too. Together, we must heal.
Now, the church bell rings slowly again and again. When will it cease? Will it ever?
Today, it tolls for Sean Bell, a young black man killed on his wedding day after a 50-bullet fusillade, 46 bullets fired by 3 detectives acquitted by 1 judge.
And the church bell seems to toll forever, as we wait and pray for justice. How shall we heal? What do we feel? Now, the bell tolls for SEAN BELL, SEAN BELL, SEAN BELL... But tell me, please... FOR WHOM SHALL THE BELL TOLL TOMORROW?
