Til there were no more men at the table

In the last room of the exhibit, a question was posed to visitors. It asked whether we thought the mass incarceration problem of America was racist in its origin. You could put a chip in a clear slot to display your vote. I was glad to see that most voters thought it was. However, there were still some on the fence who voted, “maybe,” and a smaller number of those who voted, “no.” Perhaps the latter groups did not know what my body knew. They had not had enough time to think about it. Their lived experiences prevented them from knowing how black communities were specifically destabilized, targeted, and impoverished, but I did. I knew.