“Look at me when I’m talking to you!”

“Look at me when I’m talking to you!”Those were the words that led to Senator Jeff Flake's spine suddenly kicking into gear, which in turn led to this week's FBI investigation of the allegation by a decorous, professional, polite, restrained accuser, against an angry, outraged, arrogant, self-righteous candidate for the highest court in the land. Whatever might transpire, those spoken words remain. Look at me.Important words. If you don't look at me you are telling me that I don't matter. If you don't look at me, you are telling me you don't care. But also, look at me and acknowledge that I have power. My words have power. They count. I count.It's no coincidence, I think, that the command, "Look at me," so commonly used when an adult is speaking to an unruly child (so ludicrously appropriate when spoken to national leaders who have lost their collective way) is only a word and a punctuation mark removed from June Jordan's glorious poem, "Who Look at Me?"Excerpt:

Who look at me?Who see the childrenon their street the torn down door the wallcomplete an early losinggames of ballthe search to finda fatherhood a mothering of minda multimillion multicolored mirrorof an honest humankind?

Say it out loud. Humankind--a word with depths of meaning from which we have strayed. The world could use a mothering of mind.