Written Summer of 2024
I wasn’t the student who spoke up in class
Not because I wasn’t paying attention
Or I didn’t do the work
I just
I just didn’t want attention on me
I was afraid of
Screwing up
Getting it wrong
Even when I was so sure I was right
I worried
What if I’m wrong?
But in 1994
In my 11th grade
US History Class
When Mr. Desmond asked, “Could the Holocaust ever happen, here, in the United States?”
My classmates answered
Unanimously
With their collective
Shaking of heads
No, no.
No, it couldn’t happen here
And in between that shaking of heads
I heard around me
The shouting and muttering of
Voices saying
No way.
Not in the US
Not in our country.
As I sat there
Quietly listening to
Their strong conviction of
Patriotism
I felt a certainty of
My own rise up
In me.
From my gut
It came and like
The story of
Mose parting the
Red Sea
It parted my self-doubt
And pushed back
The small feelings of inadequacy
I had always felt because
In this moment
I knew the answer so
Immediately
I didn’t worry if
I was wrong.
I lifted my hand into
The stale
Humid air that
signaled summer’s
Inevitable return that
Always brought the end to
Classroom learning because
Who has time for that
When there’s
Teenage mischief on
The brain but
On this day
There was a lesson to be
Taught and
It felt more important than ever to be the one to teach it
Mr. Desmond caught sight of
My hand in the air
His eyes widened as he pointed in my direction, “Christa? What do you think?”
And without missing a beat
I began to speak up
(while actively noticing I was listening to my own voice)
My nerves do that to me and so
I had to tune myself out as
I said, “Yes, it could.”
“Why do you think that is?”
I paused for a moment and
then I spoke the one word that came to mind
“Propaganda.”
And as his brow dipped low
He softly nodded his head in agreement.
“Yes. Yes. It could.”
Standing here
Thirty years later
In the hot humid air of
A 2024 summer
Long past the days of teenage mischief
There is still a lesson to be learned for us all
I wasn’t wrong.
He wasn’t wrong.
It can
And it is
Happening
History is repeating.
CL July 2024