White Fragility: or, Why Jackhammers Can’t Get the Job Done

A year after initial installation, the Black Lives Matter mural was repainted

on the same street now repaved in fiberglass reinforced forever-concrete,

built to last, withstand centuries of traffic. Scholars called it performative. 

Five years later, onlookers in long lines carried it off with both hands in heavy chunks,

the valuable ones emblazoned with yellow paint, this one part of a T,

this one from the upper humped back of the B. Podcasters agree: not performative. 

Witnessing woke workers of the city carry off the pieces to their queen—Liberty,

quietly filling the earth with her brood—white deconstruction workers stashed chunks

in their MAGA stickered trucks, too, tickled to see that divisive message go.

After listening to This American Life’s episode Museum of Now