Katie must have seen the fury boiling up in me, because she stepped forward and took the lead. “All right, if you must know, we’re interns with the Taylorville Tribune,” she said, impressively convincing in her delivery. “Our editor heard how Mr. Johnson saved that poor homeless man from being shot at the Publix, and sent us to do a story—in his own words.”

That made the officer laugh. “First off, it was a homeless woman, so get your story straight. Secondly, the district attorney believes they were accomplices in the robbery, and third, the Tribune oughta know better than to send a couple of kids to interview someone so dangerous.”

Katie began going off on how he was trampling our First Amendment rights, but something else caught me about this exchange. Something decidedly off. This was a county jail, after all. Inmates came and went on a regular basis. But this man knew Leo by name, as well as the details of his case.

“You said he was dangerous. Dangerous how?” I asked.

“He’s a threat to the peace,” the officer said. “That whole community down in South Taylorville’s got their braids in a bustle over this guy, calling him a ‘symbol of oppression.’” He scoffed at the thought, dismissing it with a sneer. “Word on the street is that he and his girlfriend were organizing some sort of action against T-ville High. That boy was planning a riot!”

It took a few seconds for me to realize he meant the dance. Even that was being pounded into a weapon to use against Leo.

“If you girls want to do an interview, why don’t you talk to the Publix manager who was attacked and write an article that will set people straight on what really happened.”

I tried to keep my cool, but it was so incredibly hard. “What if he’s lying? What if Leo’s telling the truth?”

And then, in a voice oozing condescension, this man said the most offensive thing anyone has ever said to me in any world.

“Sweetie,” he said, “a lousy s’equal like Leo Johnson wouldn’t know the truth if it shot him in the back.”

Was there ever a time in our history that we accepted each other as human beings? Was the line between “us” and “them” always a chasm we couldn’t bridge?

We vilify the difference in others; we glorify the differences in ourselves. We put “them” in a box, then create our own boxes. To define ourselves so we don’t get defined. To find our tribe and defend it from the others. But that basic human need for identity is, and has always been, a double-edged sword. Because the closer to our feet we draw that line in the sand, the more we see everyone else as the enemy.