I know that justice and liberty are distinct, but the previous image of Bush as a vampire reminded me of the powerful Langston Hughes poem:
Justice
That Justice is a blind goddess
Is a thing to which we black are wise:
Her bandage hides two festering sores
That once perhaps were eyes.
Many summers ago I was sitting on the porch of the house I was living in at the time, having a conversation with some folks about religion. One of the people there was an African-American Bahai and somehow the conversation turned to the question of why Islam seemed appealing to so many Black Americans. His answer, especially coming from a Bahai, really surprised me. He basically said that a history of oppression gave Black people a unique capacity to recognize the truth when we see it. I would question the narrow racialism implied by both examples, but would still suggest that even if it doesn't provide one with special race-based wisdom or insight, a collective history of oppression will at the very least give a person a low tolerance for bs.
