Dear Sam,
I write to you again in my 22nd year, my fourth year attending the university where you once stood. It has now been a little over a year since your toppling. What a moment it was. I am still in awe of those who courageously felt the need to take justice into their own hands and pull you from your pedestal, into the dirt beneath where you belong. But, I never thought I would have to write to you again, and I hate that I must. But it seems that you, and those who love you, will just not rest in peace. You insist upon championing on some archaic crusade that died generations ago.
The university has decided to establish a substantial set of funds for your upkeep. When I heard the news of this, I cannot say I knew how to feel. I did not feel joy as I did when I heard you had fallen. I did not feel anger when I heard your loved ones were on our campus months ago, armed and ready to defend their cause to their dying breath. I believe that my heart did not know which direction to take, and thus fell on something resembling indifference. Because I am tired. It is taxing enough being a student, and even more taxing being black. And now I must deal with you again. But, I will grant you your wish. You want attention and so you shall have mine.
I must admit I thought it hilarious when they finally found where you had been hiding out all this time. To see you, wrapped in your blue tarp, so fragile and defeated, was oh so ironically amusing.
But I realize now that this is not a joke. It was not then and it is not now. Because, no matter where you are, whether it is on the university’s Mccorkle Place or in some undisclosed trailer yard, you nevertheless represent not only hatred, but conflict. Because that is all you have been for those who hate you and those who love you, a source of conflict. And I believe that is the most depressing thing about you, Sam.
When I wrote to you last, I tried to see this conflict from your perspective. I surmised that you were probably traumatized by all that your bronze eyes had seen and thus felt relieved when your bronze body hit the ground to escape it all. But now I think I may have been wrong in this.
I think you enjoy it. I think you have always enjoyed it and I think you always will.
I don’t know what can be done about you. Most of my fellow black people act as if you, and others like you, must always be fought against. But I am not so sure anymore. Your presence on my campus hurt me, it truly did. It was difficult to walk past you and be reminded of how so many people will never understand me, will never hope to. For that, I am glad you are gone. But I am now starting to wonder if it is better to just simply ignore your kind and move on with my life. Because I now feel that we are fighting a war of attrition, with resources that could be better spent elsewhere. There will always be members of your kind standing atop centuries old pedestals and there will always be loved ones of yours to defend them. I do not want you to think that I am giving up. I am just simply starting to realize that I do not believe you are worth the effort. Because you do not deserve it. Every moment I spend. I will never criticize those who continue to fight. Perhaps they are even stronger than me. I will continue to advocate for those people and for all black souls, because they are God’s children and therefore each hold some measure of his beauty. But I will no longer allow you to overshadow that beauty with your own archaic darkness.
Although I hate writing to you again, I again must also thank you. Because, again, you have shown me a deeper truth within myself that I otherwise would not have seen. You have become another step on my divinely lit path and I welcome each experience that embodies. But I must promise that you will not hear from me again.
Signed,
James Elliott Millner
UNC-Chapel Hill
Class of 2020