friends are the best

A while back, I'm embarrassed to admit how long of a while back, let's just say it's been a minute. Anyway, Carole over at Inspired Journey honored me with the Friends are the Flowers in the Garden of Life Award.

Once again, thank you so much Carole. You have always been a great support to me and your positive and enthusiastic blog is an inspiration to everyone. Please don't mistake my delay in writing this post as a lack of appreciation. As before, I am truly flattered and honored by your recognition.

I am passing this to all of my friends on my Blog List. Participation is not required, but feel free to pass this along to your friends and remember a link always shows a lot of Blog Love.

balancing anger

January 9th was the last time I posted.

Three shootings, all appearing to be racially motivated introduced 2009 that has been dubbed a new beginning. A time for hope. I couldn't help but think what an ironic beginning for a year of hope. Back to back, racially motivated shootings, two of them resulting in death, kicking off the Year of Hope.

I created this blog to tell my story, to talk about racism within my family and being cast aside by them because I dared to cross that racial line. About how I chose happiness and fulfillment in exchange for hypocrisy, fear and misery.

My goal was, and still is, to shed light on a topic that is a remaining taboo in a society where ironically anything goes. Perhaps I would change a few minds about how useless and futile racial fear is and the resulting hate created from that fear. Maybe some would realize that fear only produces obstacles and roadblocks towards real change and hope.

So I shared my personal story with you. I wrote about racial incidents I observed and incidents I encountered personally just because I love a black man. I wrote about stories in the news where young men were shot in their own driveways, on the side of the road, or laying face down in a subway station. Shot because of fear, anger and hate.

These stories made me want to find more stories just like them. They fueled me with anger so off I went looking for stories to bring here and share my anger with you.

Then I stopped. After all , if all I bring to you is despair, anger and hopelessness, what difference have I made? If I bring you a story here and there that too often sounds like it should have happened thirty or forty years ago and then piss and moan about how things haven't changed, what am I really bringing to the table? Defeat? More anger?

After all, who wants to read about more despair in times like these? And so I struggled and thought and pondered about what I'm doing here.


And what I discovered is this:

Life is all about balance. I preach this to myself, to my family. I've even written about life balance many times over in other arenas. I just forgot to practice it.

I will still talk about the Oscar's, Robbie's and Billy Joe's who are murdered needlessly out of fear. It happened and unfortunately will continue to happen. We, indeed, must talk about all that happens and quit sweeping racism under the rug. We need to quit dressing up gratuitous actions, trying to make them look pretty in a disguise we then try to label as progress. We need to tell the truth. I intend to do my part just like I originally planned.

There is, however, a more positive side of me that is just as capable of finding proactive angles to share with you. With more balance, the big picture will come into focus, grow clearer and more defined. If we are looking at all angles of the picture, you just never know, we may find some answers.

And that, my friends, is the beauty of balance.

another shooting

I was thinking today I would sit down and write a "feel good" post. Seems I'm always talking about that latest hate filled behavior, memory, shooting, killing and on and on. It was beginning to get to me.

Don't I have anything good to say?

I do.

Not today though. If you haven't watched the video yet, watch it now. You will see why I don't have anything good to say today.

another killing

While visiting All About Race I discovered yet another story about yet another senseless murder. Why are these stories so craftily hidden from main stream media?

Twenty two year old Oscar Grant was detained to be questioned about an alleged fight. The video shows him cooperating with officers. The video also shows Oscar wrestled to the ground, with a knee in his back. Him laying there not moving. Then the video shows an officer pulling out his gun and shooting Oscar in the back at close range.

I was speechless.

I remember so many stories of beatings gone bad. Police brutality, cruelty that escalates in the heat of the moment. Barbaric behavior by those taught to be above it. Those situations are horrific and I don't know about you, but visions of this nature stay with me a long time. None of those stories compare to this one. A subway station, people milling around everywhere and on video an officer of the law draws his weapon and shoots an unarmed, non threatening person in the back.

Watch the video and answer this question for me please: Have we really come that far?

driving while black.....in mississippi

He was hot and tired. He had started his day early, waking up in Memphis and continuing on to Charlotte. It was May and hotter than usual for a spring day. Felt more like July, sticky and thick. Kind of rubbed off on your mood and made you feel slow, but anxious at the same time.

As usual he was pulling two trailers, heading east through Mississippi on US78 past small town after small town, counting mile after boring mile and minute after boring minute, impatient to get out of Mississippi. Driving through Mississippi always gave him an uneasy, restless feeling. He always had the feeling that if something bad, something unjust were to happen, it would surely happen in Mississippi.

He laughed a little to himself. Once he crossed out of Mississippi, he would just have to start playing this uneasy game with himself again. Only difference would be, the game and the feeling would be called Alabama. The game was a little easier, but it was still Alabama.

And things truly hadn't changed that much in either place.

So on he drove. He came upon Fulton, not too far from the Mississippi/Alabama state line. Fulton had a scale house. All truckers had to stop there, cross the scale and make sure their trailers weren't over the allowed weight. So he got in line and waited his turn. No big deal, he had done this literally thousands of times. Sometimes you are overweight, but when you drive for a major freight company like he did, your company paid the fine and you drove on down the road.

The guys they really gave a hard time to were the independents. Mom and Pop companies who owned a couple of trucks and had to stretch a dollar as far as it would go. Sometimes you had to drive over the weight limit. Sometimes you drove with a broken brake light or no seal on your trailer. You did what you had to. They would pull those guys over because that's when they found the stuff the bad guys were hauling. But the major freight companies, it didn't pay to harass them, just give them a ticket and keep those guys moving. It's the way the business runs.

So he went over the scales in his big shiny truck with his companies big shiny logo on the side, pulling his two trailers that were under weight, everything maintained above and beyond the standard. Nothing to worry about. Just keep on driving to Alabama and that much closer to home.

But the DOT worker in the scale house looked at him sitting in his truck, made that slow eye contact and drawled over his little microphone for him to "pull on out back, boy." So he did.
He did, all the time wondering what was this all about.

When he pulled out back he noticed all the trucks waiting to be inspected for their alleged infractions were different from him as they were all independent truckers. But really they were all the same as they all shared the same skin color. Oh, except for one Hispanic driver and another guy who looked maybe Asian.

What happened next is the DOT worker strode up to his truck, asked for his paperwork and proceeded to quiz him on what he was carrying, where he was going and so on. He was perplexed and irritated as he had been doing this for fifteen years, driving through thousands of scale houses and never had this happen. Especially when the DOT guy said: "where you from boy? You don't sound like you from anywhere around here. You from up North boy?"

He asked Mr. DOT what the sound of his voice had to do with why he was being detained. The DOT guy retaliated by officially putting his truck out of service. breaking the seal, opening the back and inspecting the freight. Mr. DOT felt that the two skids in the back of the trailer were touching each other and that definitely was a violation. He was unable, however to recall which violation.

Mr. DOT then told him to stay right where he was and made a phone call. A few minutes later the local sheriff pulled up in his cruiser and an intense conversation ensued. He called his corporate office and notified them of his "out of service status". They expressed their extreme confusion as why this was happening and told him to keep them advised.

After hanging up with his office, he watched the conversation between Mr. DOT and the sheriff who really didn't belong there for any reason he could see. He had a real uneasy feeling come over him. He decided he might be best off with a "witness" and called his girl. Sure, she was way off in another state, but at least she would be on the line and could hear what may or may not happen. They talked and he told her what was going on. He told her about this bad feeling he had and if anything happened to not let it go.

They talked for a while longer and hung up with his promise to call every few minutes. That's when Mr. Dot and the Sheriff decided to talk to him again. They interrogated him about why he sounded so different (different from what?), as if they were trying to provoke him into doing something foolish. Inside he was boiling with emotion. Outside he presented calm. He called his office again. He walked around his truck. Each time they approached him, he kept his hand near a knife he carried just in case.

This went on for over four hours. Interrogation, taunting, questioning. Clearly, they wanted him to break. To openly attack them in some way that they would feel justified to retaliate. This wasn't the first time they played this game. They were skilled at this ugly baiting and clearly enjoying themselves. Except they couldn't achieve the results they were hoping to glean from this encounter.

Finally they told him to go. No explanation as to why this occurred, what his infraction was, what perceived law he supposedly violated. They released him as if they owned him and were now setting him free.

He continued down US78 on to Alabama, angry, humiliated, seething with what he would have like to have done, and knowing how foolish and futile that would have been. On to Alabama, perhaps to more of what he encountered driving while black in Mississippi.

Perhaps this sounds like something that happened in the 1960's or 1970's. No. It was in May, 2007. It happened to my husband while I was on the other end of his cell phone. It was unbelievable to me, chilling that this still happens. But the truth is, it does.