The Murder of Hope

 

So many of my fellow writers here are much younger than I.  Some terrific essays have been posted in the past few days, but most of the true memories of the day John F. Kennedy was slain have been from those of you who were in elementary school or even younger.

I was two weeks past my 19th birthday.  It was the second year of my college education in a place that, in retrospect, was probably as unlikely as it could have been at the time.  Politics were important to me then, but not important enough to have it influence my choice of schools. 

I learned in my first year that I had signed up to attend a small, liberal arts college in the prairies of Wisconsin in a town that distinguished itself as being the birthplace of the Republican Party.

Not only was I the only “Negro” woman enrolled there; I was also a part of a very small coterie of young Democrats.

At 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time on Friday, November 22, 1963, I was walking alone toward the Commons, hoping I hadn’t missed out completely on lunch.  My head was swirling with chemical formulas, exhausted from a brutal mid-term exam in chemistry.

Two guys I knew – the school was only 800 students strong, so I knew just about everybody by then – were walking toward me laughing.

“Did you hear, L?”

“Hear what?” I responded, smiling.

“Somebody killed Kennedy.”

Again, they smirked and chuckled.

“Yeah, right.  You two are such lunch buckets.”  That’s one of the many stupid things we called each other back then.  It meant they were “out to lunch” or idiots. I thought it applied particularly well for classmates who claimed to be Republicans.

They passed and I kept walking. 

But they were not joking.  It was true. I heard it from a fellow liberal who approached on that same stretch of sidewalk.  I heard it, but couldn’t process it.  It couldn’t happen in this country.  Not here.  Not now.

I changed my direction and headed for the dorm.  My appetite vanished as quickly as the President’s future.  I needed to talk to my mother.  Now.  I was confused, angry,  and scared. 

The election of President Kennedy had meant to my young mind that things were getting much, much better.  He won, despite being a Catholic.  That was huge for me because I shared that “stigma” with him, although I didn’t  understand why it was such a big issue in the scheme of things.  He talked about what a nation should be and what he was saying sounded very much like he agreed that people like me should have a fair shake.  Maybe I wouldn’t have to be so mindful of my race anymore.  Maybe I could just be another college coed.  Maybe the turmoil that was going on the the Deep South at the time would come to a halt and things would change.

By the time I reached my mother on the hall telephone in the dorm, my hope was DOA.

Urban Decay and Feral Teens

 

It appears the simulated violence in video games is no longer exhilarating enough for some urban teenagers.  There’s a new game in town that is all the rage among seemingly asocial posses of thrill seekers.  They call it Knockout.

The object of the game?  To see if the teen has enough skill and strength to knock unconscious some random pedestrian in one well-placed blow.  When successful, the unsuspecting pedestrian falls like a tree and the posse celebrates. 

Sometimes the prey doesn’t recover.  One man, Ralph Santiago,46, was found dead in Hoboken, N.J., his head and broken neck wedged between two iron fence posts. Video surveillance recorded his assailant delivering the knockout blow.

Apparently, this phenomenon is moving across America’s vast landscape, coming soon to a city near you. There have been deaths as a result of such attacks in Syracuse, St. Louis and New Jersey.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=u_PEBsEyYHQ

America, what have we done!? How have we allowed our society to decline into a re-enactment of Lord of the Flies?

The proverbial elephant on the table, based on the reports of such incidents to date, is the race of the young people shown in the videos mindlessly attacking innocent people who happen by at the exact moment these feral human beings decided to get their “fun on.”

These are the first two comments I saw when I scrolled down on yesterday’s CBS DC report on Knockout:

jimjenky• 3 minutes ago

• Yep, call me a racist, but soon as I saw the article title I knew the race of those playing this game. Oh, but we need to understand that this is the result of slavery, the break-up of the black family, the on-going racism of America and its effects on the lives of black youth, etc, etc, etc. The biggest problem with black America, especially with black youths, is the continued excuses that are given for their poor conduct, thus encouraging further poor conduct. Face facts, America, the greatest enemy of black America are black Americans. Time to look at whether this is cultural of genetic.

Roxy• 3 minutes ago

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Yes, the guilty parties were black.  And no matter how hateful we find the comments I’ve pasted above, the truth is that I also knew without seeing the video that the kids involved would be black.  That is particularly problematic for me because I am also black and I spend a good deal of my time writing about and fighting against the stereotypes that plague me and other mothers of sons who are black and innocent of such ignorant,feral behavior.

To answer the commenter jimjenky, let me say this:  It is not genetic, it is cultural.  It HAS been looked at to see if this kind of amoral behavior is genetically inherent to descendants of black Africans.  It is not.  So no, it is not about race.

It is about decade after decade of poverty among black families who cannot join the White Flight that renders inner cities dark-skinned and even poorer. 

It is about children in those dark-skinned cities being raised by child mothers, who were raised by child mothers, who were raised by child mothers.

It is about the propensity for residents of these dark-skinned cities to turn to drugs and drug trafficking to both escape the relentless grind of poverty that they can’t hope to escape and to earn the kind of living they think they deserve. 

jimjenky stated: “Face facts, America, the greatest enemy of black America are black Americans.”

This is where it gets difficult for me.  This is a statement I cannot refute.  I, too, am afraid of groups of black teenagers.  As a senior citizen, I am feeling more and more vulnerable to the dangers of simply leaving my house. 

Last week I was afraid to carry my cell phone while walking my dog because young black men and woman are making a sport out of jumping out of cars and snatching the devices right out of the hands of pedestrians.  Now I have to be concerned about being the random target of a so-called game to see if one of those thugs can knock me out in one punch.  The chances that these crimes will be committed by black youths are well into 90th percentiles. 

What’s interesting about my concerns is that I do not live in a blighted neighborhood.  On the contrary, this is considered an upscale in-town neighborhood with a fair amount of cultural diversity, but still predominately white.  In-town Atlanta has undergone an impressive gentrification over the past three or four decades.  In fact, many of those white flyers have reclaimed large sections of the inner-city, pushing the dark-skinned city dwellers outward into the exurban areas and creating new pockets of urban-like blight.

The problem is the feral thugs are mobile.  If they have no car to use to cruise the areas where the stuff they want is likely to be, they steal it.  Their thought process seems to be simply “I don’t have one; I need one; I’ll take yours.”  There is no conscience involved.  It is pragmatic. Morality and conscience have vanished among this group. 

It has vanished to the point that knocking innocent passersby unconscious is a leisurely pastime.  

You and I may disagree about how we got to this place, but this is where we are.  Blaming it on black people will not protect non-black people from the Knockout Game.  Blaming it on white people will not protect non-white from becoming prey. 

America, we have a problem.  There is nowhere to hide.

Better than Sex

 

At first glance, I’m pretty sure I look like a real girly-girl.  I admit to paying meticulous attention to my public presentation – clothes must fit, hair must be neat and the melasma spots on my cheeks concealed.  And I never leave the house without earrings! 

When it comes to what we women commonly refer to as “pampering”, however, I’m not big on it.  Waiting around in a hair salon while people rearrange and transform their follicles is my idea of torture.  I do it once in a while just to remind myself how much I hate it. I usually go straight home and rewash and restyle my hair after dropping anywhere between $65 and $100, plus tip.  Who needs that?

I can think of at least three times in my life when I have been generously gifted with a certificate for a Spa Day at one of Atlanta’s most chi-chi establishments.  They all expired and went unused.  Did I feel guilty about the big bucks I wasted?  Yes…but not enough to pick up the phone and make the appointments.

A couple of weeks ago my son called and asked how I was feeling.  On that particular day I was literally aching in every joint and muscle in my body.  It didn’t feel like the flu or a cold coming on.  I was just achy – like a person in her very latest 60s will be from time to time.

I must digress from the real purpose of this post to explain that my son, as wonderful as he is, sometimes allows gift-giving events like birthdays and Christmas to sneak up on him.  He never fails to produce something, but it is usually something like flowers and candy and teddy bears; things that can be called in and delivered immediately, if not sooner.

I almost threw the thing in the trash, something I do without opening most of the mail I receive these days.  As I stood over the trash can sorting through the campaign materials someone spent too much money to print and send; the ubiquitous flyers about new gutters and carpet cleaners; the countless catalogs that I am constantly asking retailers not so send; and the birthday card from my mother, something told me to open the substantial high-quality ivory envelope.

My son, in his thoughtful kindness, had sent me a gift certificate for something called a Hot Stone Massage –60 minutes.  The certificate was signed “Happy Birthday” from Stephen.   I was so touched by his attention to my needs.  I was also terrified I would do what I had done so many times before and allow the gift to expire, so I called and made the appointment.   I have just come back from the most blissful hour of my life.

The spa is located on the ground floor of a hugely expensive high-rise condominium in the Buckhead section of Atlanta.  For those who don’t know, Buckhead is like the Beverly Hills of the south.  It is full of people like the Real Housewives of Atlanta.  They have money and time to burn and they spend both freely in hair salons, nail salons, and spas.

From the moment I went through the etched glass doors it was Zen, Zen, Zen.  Music sounding very much like it was being played by Andreas Vollenweider seemed to gently invade my pores.  I could practically feel my blood pressure head downward.

Natalie, my Russian masseuse, spoke in a soft, pleasingly accented voice, suggesting I strip down to my own personal level of comfort, which for me meant buck naked.  She gave me plenty of time to slide into a deliciously clean bed of opulent linens.  I almost fell asleep just waiting for Natalie to return.

I was a bit apprehensive about this hot stone situation.  What was she going to do, place them on my tortured muscles and let them sit there?  Would they be too hot?  Could the heat aggravate my constant companion, Eminess*? We discussed all that and decided to proceed.

Never has an hour gone by so fast.  I had only had deep tissue massages before in my life, so those memories don’t bring nirvana to mind.  They hurt, at times.  This was so totally different, I was transported to a place I have only visited for the brief amount of time spent in the throes of orgasmic ecstasy.  No thoughts about sickness.  No thoughts about politics.  No thoughts about anything except how good I felt, body and soul.  And for an entire hour!

When Natalie stopped rubbing me with massage oil and the heated river stones held in the palm of her hand, she covered my body with a damp heated blanket.  I could have slept there for the rest of the day and night.  Unfortunately, that wasn’t part of the gift, so I had to find the strength to arise from the table and re-dress my painless and seemingly boneless body.

I have no idea how much that transcendent sixty minutes cost my son, but I’m pretty sure I can’t afford to do that regularly.  I’ll have to remember to complain about my aches and pains a little before Christmas.  Who knows?  Maybe Santa Stephen will read my mind again.

 

* Eminess is my “pet name” for Multiple Sclerosis