A Year Of Understanding

 It is extremely strange when you see national guard helicopters flying around and over your town.  I don't suppose that it gets normal for anyone, but this past year has been extremely ... sad, strange, frustrating, and enlightening.  And I know more things now that I wish I didn't have to know, but as the days go by, that is also something I have the privilege not to deal with, thanks to my skin color.

Which is what is driving most of the change, unfortunately.  I used to think that maybe we'd gotten past the racism that was prevalent in the world, but it seems it's just gotten far more deadly and insidious.  On 05/25/2020, George Floyd walked out of a convenience store in his neighborhood and the police ... well, they killed him.  We've had one trial so far completed, and it determined that yes, Derek Chauvin did kneel on his back until Mr. Floyd was no longer breathing.

I was sitting in a pediatrician's office with my son a number of years ago.  He was pre-school age, so he was probably 3 or 4.  I watched him zoom around the room doing his thing, we did his doctor visit, and I took him back to his day care.  Then I went back to the doctor's office and sat, waiting for my doctor.  Who referred me downstairs for a medical procedure, if I remember, I think it might have been X-rays or a scan of some sort.  Not your normal lab visit.  

But when I got to the waiting room for my next stop, it was rather full.  I remember listening to a young boy, maybe a few years old than my son, translating the nurse's words for his parents.  And that disturbed me, because here was a little boy not much younger than my son who was trying to understand things about ovaries.  Yeah, me either at that age.

Then as I tried to concentrate on the magazine I'd found (remember those, before smart phones existed?) and a woman was talking to her young son.  She was an African-American woman, her son was maybe nine or ten, I smiled at them when they came in and sat across from me, and then went back to my magazine, trying hard to build the walls that let people know I wasn't trying to listen to them.  Most doctor office visits aren't done in groups, so if several people come in, and begin a conversation, it's usually not a good one if the folks are above about three or four.  

And this one struck me as incredibly disturbing because the woman was telling her son to keep his hands out of his pockets.  The boy wanted his hands there.  "You need to learn that people are going to worry if they can't see your hands."

"Why, mom?"
"Because they'll see you as a threat."
"I'm just a kid."
"Some people will see that.  Some won't.  Some who won't might be police or other people who will assume the worst."
"But I didn't do anything!"
"I know that, but they don't, and if they assume the worst, you could get hurt.  Life isn't easy for us."

And that was where I really wanted to just vomit.  Here was a woman telling her son he had to be careful not to appear to be a threat.  Because he was a different color.  I looked up when they called another name, not mine.  I saw the little boy looking at me, I rolled my eyes, checked my watch, nodded, and went back to my magazine.  I watched through my eyelashes as he sat fidgeting as young boys with pent up energy do.  

And there are many days since then when I wonder if that young man was able to avoid those terrifying moments and reach adulthood.  I don't know, but i do hope so.  But there have been so many young men killed - in all forms of violence, but the one that brings me to tears is the cases where young men who shouldn't have to expect a threat are, instead, killed.

Sure, you might say "well, if he hadn't [X]..."  Yeah.  Because none of us has ever made a mistake.  I've been in the back seat of a police car exactly once in my entire life, and it was thanks to confusion over an unpaid ticket I thought had been paid.  I did not realize my license had been suspended, but I stopped at the library to drop off some library books, continued on my way to pick up the kids from Daycare, and the officer stopped me and asked if I was aware my license had been suspended.  Uh, what?  

There are young men who never got their wallets out of their pockets before the police shot them.  Or worse.

And there is absolutely no reason at all that Mr. Floyd should be dead now.  Most murders are senseless, but his was doubly so because the men who killed him were supposed to protect him.  But thanks to people who did not see him as a person at all, just a criminal, they had no problems killing him.  And that is where we need to change the system.

Yeah, I know. I'm not saying "defund the police."  I am saying that let us build a better system.  You don't call your doctor when your toilet clogs up with a clog that just isn't going away no matter what you do.  You don't call the plumber when the garage door opener doesn't work.  You don't call the electrician when your car won't start.  And you don't call your mechanic when your knee twists when you land funny on the steps.  You call a specialist who has spent time learning their job and does it well.  And that's the system we need to tweak now.  

Sure, there are reasons you want the police involved.  But if a person is standing in their backyard screaming maybe the person needs someone to talk with them and help them through the problem - not someone who clips them into handcuffs and takes them to another room where they can keep screaming and bother no one in the neighborhood.  We need to develop a system that provides the appropriate tool for the situation.  Not a hammer, no matter the problem.  I do a lot of fixing things and repairs, and I know sometimes a nail is better than a bolt.  But sometimes you need glue, sometimes it's only duct tape, and sometimes you need to step back and figure out the problem.  

The right tool makes the difference.  And we need more than one in our tool belts these days.