Invisible man

            That was all I needed, I'd made a contact, and it was as though his voice was that of them all. I was wound up, nervous. I might have been anyone, might have been trying to speak in a foreign language. For I couldn't remember the correct words and phrases from the pamphlets. I had to fall back upon tradition and since it was a political meeting, I selected one of the political techniques that I'd heard so often at home: The old down-to-earth, I'm-sick-and-tired-of-the-way-they've-been-treating-us approach. I couldn't see them so I addressed the microphone and the co-operative voice before me.

            "You know, there are those who think we who are gathered here are dumb," I shouted. "Tell me if I'm right."

            "That's a strike, Brother," the voice called. "You pitched a strike."

            "Yes, they think we're dumb. They call us the 'common people.' But I've been sitting here listening and looking and trying to understand what's so common about us. I think they're guilty of a gross mis-statement of fact -- we are the uncommon people --"

            "Another strike," the voice called in the thunder, and I paused holding up my hand to halt the noise.

            "Yes, we're the uncommon people -- and I'll tell you why. They call us dumb and they treat us dumb. And what do they do with dumb ones? Think about it, look around! They've got a slogan and a policy. They've got what Brother Jack would call a 'theory and a practice.' It's 'Never give a sucker an even break!' It's dispossess him! Evict him! Use his empty head for a spittoon and his back for a door mat! It's break him! Deprive him of his wages! It's use his protest as a sounding brass to frighten him into silence, it's beat his ideas and his hopes and homely aspirations, into a tinkling cymbal! A small, cracked cymbal to tinkle on the Fourth of July! Only muffle it! Don't let it sound too loud! Beat it in stoptime, give the dumb bunnies the soft-shoe dance! The Big Wormy Apple, The Chicago Get Away, the Shoo Fly Don't Bother Me!

            "And do you know what makes us so uncommon?" I whispered hoarsely. "We let them do it."

            The silence was profound. The smoke boiled in the spotlight.

            "Another strike," I heard the voice call sadly. "Ain't no use to protest the decision!" And I thought, Is he with me or against me?

            "Dispossession! Dis-possession is the word!" I went on. "They've tried to dispossess us of our manhood and womanhood! Of our childhood and adolescence -- You heard the sister's statistics on our infant mortality rate. Don't you know you're lucky to be uncommonly born? Why, they even tried to dispossess us of our dislike of being dispossessed! And I'll tell you something else -- if we don't resist, pretty soon they'll succeed! These are the days of dispossession, the season of homelessness, the time of evictions. We'll be dispossessed of the very brains in our heads! And we're so uncommon that we can't even see it! Perhaps we're too polite. Perhaps we don't care to look at unpleasantness. They think we're blind -- uncommonly blind. And I don't wonder. Think about it, they've dispossessed us each of one eye from the day we're born. So now we can only see in straight white lines. We're a nation of one-eyed mice -- Did you ever see such a sight in your life? Such an uncommon sight!"

            "An' ain't a farmer's wife in the house," the voice called through the titters of bitter laughter. "It's another strike!"