Saturday, November 29, 2014

I dunno. . .

I'm going to tell you a secret. And it's probably not good for business.

I have not yet figured out what this blog is about.

A blog, by definition, is something you put out there for people to read, quick and dirty. There is some onomatopoeia going on, because something about the word sounds unplanned and uncontrolled. Blog. It's like the sound you make when you are yacking up an evening's worth of hors d'eouvres and booze after a party you took too far.

You take in a bunch of life and then you sick it all out: "Blaaaaaagh!"

It starts with finding a niche: food blogging, mommy blogging, political blogging, craft blogging, fashion blogging, music blogging. . . You might want to update fellow Dr. Who fans on the latest twists and turns of everyone's favorite British sci-fi import (I have to admit, I don't watch the show. When it comes to the good doctor and his inter-galactic travels, which traverse the time-space continuum, I'm totally re-Tardis.).

You can also post pictures of baby animals that make everyone go "squee." Give folks a dose of the bonding hormone oxytocin or a glad grab-bag of serotonin, the kind of happy boost that tells them to "hang in there" as surely as a poster with a kitten dangling from a tree limb by its claws.



Or you free-ball it, eschewing a specific topic, as in my "Battlestar Eclectica" concept. You can see it three ways. One, I am giving myself freedom to explore diverse topics. Two, I am copping out. Three, I am giving myself just enough rope to hang myself.

Regardless, if I am to have a blog, I need to post something.

One of the agreed-upon qualities of a blog is that you keep it regular. You make your blog a thing, like the LA Times is a thing. No, not quite like the Times, because you can skip a day or a few in your bog. But if you go a couple weeks or a month or more without posting, it's the equivalent of hanging up a "Going Out of Business" sign.

At the same time, you don't want to put something up in the blogosphere that has no meaning--nothing in it to make someone think or laugh or feel something. Because then, it's no better than an empty fast food bag tossed by the side of the freeway. It's clutter than can serve to nourish no one. It's worse than nothing.

So I'm going to pick a substantive topic. I'm going to talk about Ferguson.

There is protesting going on across the country over the clearing of a police officer of  wrongdoing in the shooting death of Michael Brown. In many cases it's peaceful, impassioned and idealistic. In some cases, it's thuggish and opportunistic. In some areas, both types of protests are going on.

There is also a lot of dialogue going on, in workplaces by water coolers, at family reunions, and on social media sites. I'm scared to even look to see what they're saying on Fox News.

Some say justice has been served and others say a mockery has been made of justice. Some people say there's no racism involved at all in this situation: If you misbehave around an armed policeman, you can expect to get shot. Others say police are using too much force, and that you don't know what it is to fear cops until you are black.

And then, there are a few people who are withholding judgement. I am among them because I honestly can see both sides.

I think that police out there have a lot of adrenaline going--they don't want to die--and they have firearms. And they are often in real bodily danger. Add aggression or perceived aggression, wrongdoing, lawbreaking, an altercation, you name it and it's a recipe for those weapons being discharged. Might that tinderbox pose more of a problem if you are black? I think they might.

In high school, I had a friend who was a big, goateed Mexican guy. When most people get pulled over for speeding, there's one cop involved. He had several show up once, because even as a teen, he was a bad-ass looking mo-fo.

I had a girl at my suburban high school who was in my honors classes. This was a college-bound black girl. Her parents bought her a new red sports car and she drove in her new ride with another friend, also black, also one of my classmates, to the mall. When the girls left, they were followed all the way to her home because, it turned out, police thought she might have stolen the car.

And this is in southern California.

So I'm going to say this: I don't know. I don't want to bend over backwards, being a knee-jerk liberal who is filled with guilt over the sins of white Americans past and present. But I don't know what it's like to be black in America.

I learn about race in all kinds of ways, including in a book I'm currently reading about Richard Pryor, "Furious Cool," which describes the racial atmosphere in the mid-1930s when he was born through the 1960s when he first came to prominence, and beyond. He thought there was a lot of prejudice in the United States. And he was a smart guy, who had friends of all colors and dug white women. (It happens. Some people have preferences.)

So lots of people are saying it's hard to be black in America. From what I can tell, it's also hard to be a cop in America. And I want cops in America. Not too may of them, because I don't want too many tickets! But if I were walking down a dark alley and someone was after me, I'd want nothing more than to see a police officer. Okay, maybe I'd rather see Hagrid from "Harry Potter," but a cop is a close second.

So what's the answer? I don't have an answer at present, other than to try not to spout too much hate and to try to understand people different from me. Cops are different from me too, you know. I wouldn't want to have the responsibility of carrying a gun. I don't like uniforms or taking orders. And I'm not particularly brave. I'm a lover, not a fighter. No, more particularly, I'm a writer, not a fighter.

I think it's sometimes it's okay not to have an immediate, sure opinion—to not be always be the person getting mad and blowing off steam via facebook posts and lumping people into groups as if they were all the same.  As if all black people are currently out raging and looting or as if cops are all smiling now, knowing they can get away with murder.

We need some people, I think, who aren't quick to anger. People who are willing to read and listen and watch and learn.

When you do that, you see that conflicts between factions of people are bad any way you look at it. You see that its causes aren't as simple as there is an "us" and them, and "they" need a reality check.

Maybe with some mulling over, we can find some solutions. Because black people aren't going way. And cops aren't going away. Nor is the percentage of bad apples that exist among all people, and the larger percentage of people with good intentions.

We're gong to need some justice system reform. We're going to need some communication reform. We're going to need attitude reform.

I don't have any great ideas yet. But if my slow-cooker of a mind does strike intellectual gold,  I'll let you know.

In the meantime, I'll be living among a mixture of us and them, none of whom has a hive mind. I'll be living somewhere that, while there are black and white people, there are no black-and-white answers.

And yes, I'll be listening to the Monkees:

 







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