Monday, June 1, 2020

Literary Corner: Eloquent


Harvard Business Review staff/d3sign/Getty Images.

 
Elegy
by Donald J. Trump


It’s a local situation, 
but we’re also making it 
into a federal situation,a 
and it’s a terrible thing.b 

We all saw what we saw,c
and it’s very hard to even 
conceive of anything other 
than what we did see.d

It should never happen,
should never be allowed 
to happen, a thing like that. 
But we’re determined 

that justice be served, and I 
spoke to members of the familye — 
terrific people, and we’ll be 
reporting as time goes by.


a How do you federalize a situation, and why?

b A terrible thing that you're federalizing it? Or a terrible thing in general? Will the federal situation exhibit a different degree of terribleness than the local one, or not, and if not, or if you don't know, why are you telling us?


c That's kind of always true. What did we see? I mean, you might be talking about the video of a white cop weighing down on a black man's windpipe, with his hands in his pockets and a contemptuous smile on his face, for long minutes until the black man was dead? or was there something else you wanted to talk about?

d Because as far as that goes, you now, I can easily conceive of something else I might have seen, like a police officer interacting courteously with a community member even if he's suspected of a crime, and especially NOT MURDERING HIM.

e "He didn't give me an opportunity to even speak," [Philonise] Floyd said. "It was hard. I was trying to talk to him, but he just kept, like, pushing me off, like 'I don't want to hear what you're talking about.'" (CNN

No comments:

Post a Comment