Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.

Do you know that there was a time in our history when folks used to send each other postcards of lynched human beings, write that they had witnessed some great event, commiserated that their friends had missed it?

Every day, someone in the crowd yells "kill him," and she says nothing. It happened again today in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Scranton which is less than a hundred miles from here. Not surprising: the Ku Klux Klan had active chapters up here just a few years ago.

The late, beloved Fred Busch wrote of an incident in his college town a  decade ago.

His first paragraph has haunted me since I read it this month. I made my students read the article; I wanted to remind them that even here, even here in the Northeast, racial prejudice is a cancer. Sometimes, when I look at Palin and McCain, I wonder if either one of them has ever given a thought to what words mean--that is, that words inspire action, and that words lead to this?

Language breaks out. Language, a shouted word, or a silent, metaphoric act, will insist itself into notice like the thyme that pushes up through the layered shale of the earth. In early spring, as the ice beneath the frost line on the hill across from our house begins to melt, the hillside seems for days to sweat. Then, finally, it pours. Water rushes down and the gray-blue stone runs with darkness. That’s how language arrives.

This is the same photo: framed, with the hair of the victim in the frame.

There is no language to describe what I am about to show you. I am just going to remind you: this is our history. This is our dirty secret, our buried past, our original sin. These photos were all taken in the 20th century.
Note the children. Some of those children in those photos are elderly adults now. Are they haunted by what they see? Will we live through an era where the race-baiting, hatred-mongering, lying, Old Testament- invoking destructive God followers feel strong enough, with no repudiation from a major party candidate and his self-appointed pitbull, do they feel empowered to carry out these ultimately dehumanizing acts?

Where is there loving Christ? Where is their humanity? Why are they so frightened? Have they forgotten the Beatitudes? Have they forgotten the words of Hillel: "Love your neighbor as yourself?"

Or do they just hear the words: terrorist, kill him, fear, fear, fear. 

Do they really wish that Barack Obama would become the strange fruit hanging from the trees while they dance, stoked up on hatred, their eyes lit up with the hatred of the flames?

Do they feel no shame?

All photos are from Without Sanctuary.