Category: Uncategorized

Today’s post is more serious than I normally write.  I had a different entry written, but in light of this week’s shootings, I felt the need to react.  Inspired by how Matthew McConaughey presents his closing argument in A Time to Kill, I want to tell you an imaginary story.  Try to visualize this story as you read along.  You live in a small town with your family.  Everyone who lives in this town has been there forever, and while you aren’t related, you all know each other well.  The town is pretty much crime free except for one murder before you were born.  You don’t know much about it but you do know that the family related to the murderer moved away.  The motive of the murderer was never made clear.  A few weeks ago, your closest neighbor announced that the are moving and have sold their house.  A new family moves in.  The new family came from a city so they are different.  You find the family odd – they wear different clothing, they take family walks together, and the wife does yoga on the front yard every morning.  You feel like the family thinks your family is odd and stares at your house a lot.  You decide to do some research on this family and find out that the uncle of the husband is the murderer from before.  You start to get uncomfortable around the family and feel a little threatened based on the family history.

The new family, on the other hand, is nervous about moving back to the town where the husband’s uncle murdered someone.  They still don’t really know what happened on that awful night but decided to move back to the town because the town they were living in got too violent, and they wanted to go to some place familiar.  The family recognizes they are different from the others but don’t mind.  The husband and wife don’t want to change too many habits and make their kids uncomfortable.  They get nervous because they are different from everyone else but with the town being so safe, feel that they will be accepted soon enough.  They’ve been watching your house trying to look for opportunities to stop by and more formally introduce themselves.

One evening, you and the husband of the new family meet on the street walking to town.  You have brought your dog.  The husband was attacked by a dog when he was a child so is deathly afraid of dogs.  You don’t know this, however, and just start to feel like the husband is acting weird.  You exchange pleasantries but the situation is tense.  He himself actually notices that the’s talking in a slightly louder, more aggressive tone as he becomes more nervous.  As the conversation continues, the thought that comes to your head is that he is related to a murderer and maybe he will start to get violent, like his uncle.  The thought that comes to his head is that he is about to have a panic attack and needs to find a way to leave soon.  You have your dog and a gun on you so feel pretty confident that if it does escalate, you can defend yourself. You aren’t aware that he too has a gun.  Now imagine two different endings.  In one scenario, he starts to freak out even more because of the dog and tries to shoot the dog but shoots you instead.  In another scenario, you get panicked when you see him reach into his pockets and shoot him.

When you visualized this story, did you see each family as a specific race – African American, Caucasian, Hispanic, Middle Eastern, Asian?  Did you picture two people of the same race?  Did you picture one person as a veteran?  Did you picture one person gay?  Whatever you pictured, try picturing one of these other scenarios.  How does that change your perspective on what would have been right or wrong?  How do your emotions get triggered when the characters are different?  I think about this story in the context of the shootings this week and how much predetermined judgment is at play for both the police and the people encouraging violence over the police acts.  We need to acknowledge that stereotypes exist and the result of stereotypes in some situations, is racial profiling or racism.  This goes both ways, white to black and black to white.  We need to talk about where these biases com from because if we don’t, we will just continue to hurt each other.  I think people don’t like to admit they might participate in stereotyping because it seems mean and ugly – we want to think we are better than that, but we do live in a scary world and form our opinions from what we read and hear.  The shooting of innocent lives is never acceptable, but for better or worse, determining innocence is a relative term.  I hope people remember this as they fight and think about where and how change can actually happen.

My thoughts and prayers go out to each family member and friend who lost someone they loved in this week’s (and all) shootings.