We read Ray Bradbury short stories in junior high school or high school. Maybe it was the collection called “The Illustrated Man.†He had one where African Americans were so hurt and fed up to decades of vicious, racist, horrific treatment that they leave the planet and move to Mars. Eventually, one white astronaut comes to visit and said the white Americans had destroyed the earth and he was there to see if they would accept earth residents, but that he would understand if they would not.
One African Martian woman leads the discussion that begins the process of them considering the request. She reviews each place on the earth where a bad memory had a occurred—is that tree where uncle James was lynched gone? Is that plantation where my entire family was whipped gone? They went through a litany of landmarks where severe trespasses had been committed against each individual African Martian, and found the answer was that spot had be scorched, and it began a healing profound enough that they were able to allow them to take in the white earthlings.
I have been thinking about that story in this post-election landscape. Every day, I click on the newspaper and there is news of violence, hatred, coldness to another’s fate, and I just, I don’t know, that story has been rattling around my brain.