A Simpler Time

            Before, when my Asian and Latino friends and I were sporting mullets because we all idolized Hulk Hogan, MacGyver and Knight Rider, we were the kids who were “up to no good.” During all those years in school, when it came down to blaming somebody, we were the likely targets! And the only alibis we had were each other. Furthermore, the core of this situation was “Blanket Statements”; when an accuser tries to describe the kid who did it AND they don’t remember we were the default suspects. Then from the schoolyard, to the teachers and eventually our parents, they would say… “Oh, those kids, they’re ALWAYS up to no good”. The lesson learned: we hate “Blanket Statements.”

            When someone states… “In the olden days, we acknowledge that we had an error in our thinking. In the olden days, we calmed down. In the olden days, we didn’t have mass murders. In the olden days, the folks whom we had a disagreement with often forgave us, often quite readily. “Hey, forget it,” they’d say. “No sweat.” Thus our anger dissipated. It evaporated. We decided to cleanse a festering wound instead of magnifying our disagreements.” (Gazette, guest columnist, Jul 25, 2016), it shows how forgetful we really are. Just because a handful of us in the nation had it good (economically, financial and peacefully good) the “olden days” for the rest of us was NEVER like TV shows such as “Leave It To Beaver”, “Lassie”, or even “The Andy Griffith Show.”

            Let the record show: In the 1950’s there was McCarthyism (the practice of making accusations of subversion or treason without proper regard for evidence)(google.com); In 1964, the actual incident of Mississippi Burning happened (Movie came out in 1988); In 1963, the President of United States, John F. Kennedy was assassinated. In 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated. Lynchings lasted till 1968. “Lynchings were becoming a popular way of resolving some of the anger that whites had in relation to the free blacks. From 1882-1968, 4,743 lynchings occurred in the United States. Of these people that were lynched 3,446 were black.” (chesnuttarchive.org). “Wife-Beating” –“Doctors thought “wife beating” was therapeutic. An article in the issue of TIME dated 50 years ago today — Sept. 25, 1964 — highlights a mind-boggling study that concludes couples stay in abusive relationships because their fighting can “balance out each other’s mental quirks.” In the 1980’s President Regan’s Recession hit the nation hard (pbs.org). In 1982, the beating to death of Asian Americans because Japan overtook the US in manufacturing motor vehicles. In 1992, The Rodney King Riots struck (1992 Los Angeles Riots). In 1995, the Oklahoma City bombing happened. In 2001, the September 11 attacks happened and we all grieved, painfully looking at our TV screens. The Patriot Act was set up about that time (Conducting surveillance of suspects of terrorist-related activities- wikipedia.org). In 2002, Homeland Security Advisory System was up and running and made everyone paranoid. And it goes on and on and on. The notion that older generations were far better in handling disputes overall is complete fiction according to our history books; furthermore, to say that a generation is better than other generations would be hypocritical. Just think, if the previous generations followed their traditions of the “Olden times,” that would suggest that the following generations would be the same or better because of the status quo. If anything, the multiple problems of today are from former generations, because they let these atrocities happen and did little to nothing about it. And NOW, once again, people are crying foul. The whole nation must put aside differences and cohesively build a reasonable and sustainable program ON ANYTHING that we all agree on, it might not work then, it might not work in the future but we certainly haven’t tried today.

Body Count

Body Count        

                   “Have we, individually and collectively as a nation, become so immune to the frequency of violence in our neighborhoods and cities that we no longer pay any heed?” explained Colleen Tobiason (Gazette, guest columnist, Jul 20, 2016). The overall statistics answer has undoubtedly always been—YES.

                  Let me explain, a hanging pair of shoes on a telephone wire was the first thing I noticed visiting a friend. To other people, it’s laughable (I know). Although, growing up through 1980s it’s a sign of a death of a local kid, whether gang related or not. There have been neighborhoods around the corner from where I lived with strung up pairs of shoes. Furthermore, there was not a single report or investigation made to the public about any shootings throughout the neighborhood. That was the norm. Fast-forward to today, you hear flowing reports of deaths and sadly it is no surprise to me that shootings happen around the country on a consistent basis. And now I have proof that my hunch was right on target.

                  “Our best estimate, about a thousand (1000) times a year, a police officer somewhere in the United States shoots and kills somebody and so far this year we’re right on track on that number.” Explained Phil Stinson (Criminologist at Boeing State University in Ohio)(NPR: Around the Nation: “Videos Make Everyone A Witness To Police Shootings”). “It might seem like there are a lot more cases of people getting shot and killed by police but by Joseph Shapiro’s reports, it’s just because we’re paying more attention… People that live in urban communities have always known this goes on fairly regularly. The problem is nobody else is paying attention till the last few years. And I think we reach a tipping point right around the time where Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson, Missouri. And since then everybody is paying attention. I don’t think anybody would pay attention (…to anything else…) but for the videos. And you know a dead man can’t talk. It use to be the police owned the narrative, and now we’ve got another side to the story quite often through the videos.” Stinson explains.

                   I, for one, salute our uniformed brothers & sisters of arms who strive to uphold peace, but don’t think for a second that chaos, mistakes, and corruption does not exist in those worlds! I do know this first hand from when I was in the US Army—in deployment and stateside it never mattered. There are people, who went in for a paycheck and there are people who went in for a cause—as well as, there’s plenty of room for a vast chasm of grey areas. But once again, the human equation never left our minds when we are in the kill zone.

And there’s a problem of biased media who are out for ratings and intrigue. All media plays a big part of the deception! “I think part of what they do is that they actually misdirect us from looking at much deeper issues,” the media studies professor said. “Racism is a problem, homophobia is a problem, violence against immigrants is a problem… so we end up passing laws and saying… ‘look at this, we’re actually doing something’ …essentially come down to feel-good laws.” Michael Bronski  (co-author of  ‘Considering Hate’; NPR: The Two Way: “In Louisiana, It’s Now A Hate Crime To Target Police Officers”).

            What we got here is a failure to communicate! It takes exposure, community involvement, empathy—not apathy, nor cynical rhetoric and accusations of one another. Don’t think we don’t need law enforcement—cause we do, they are the living embodiment of a symbol for peace; we lose them and we have failed as a country! Did you ever think of what that would look like—as an individual in a vast community?

            “Lots of conversation in how we sort our friends in social media about sources and where we get our information from. But it’s not just where we get our information from, it’s whom we talk to outside of social media… there was a study by Public Religion Research Institute in 2013 about identifying people who have important conversations in the last six months. Their findings found that in social networks 91% of white people have entirely white friend groups… three quarters (75%) of white people have entirely white friend groups; they were not talking to people of color at all! When you see poll numbers about the vast space between where people of color feel about policing and various issues of equality and where white people stand on those issues, it can be explained in part by the fact that we’re not having the same conversations. One of the themes is the needle of these issues can’t move unless white people are engaged in them and you’re seeing people to importune (press on a subject/topic) their white friends or the white people they know, who are friends of friends, to be involved in these conversations which are often really, really awkwardly difficult to have but there is a sense that these issues cannot resolve themselves on their own without white people actually sitting down at the table having these discussions because people of color have these conversations all the time.” Gene Demby (NPR: Weekend Edition Saturday: 7/9/2016; “ How Social Media Impacts The Conversation On Racial Violence”). I try not to think of the body count whenever I hear unfortunate news (think 9/11)—IT’S ALL MORBID! I would place myself in a little dark corner in my mind-thinking, can I be a solution of another problem among society. Then, I remember this, “ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” JFK. So I beg the question, what can you do?