The Troubled Philosopher: Black Lives Matter 2020

Unsolicited Anecdote #8090 (or thereabouts; I don’t keep exact track. I should probably sleep on this and edit later, but… Ah, heck. I might as well go all in.)

At the time that I took this photo, I had just visited a Meijer grocery store to pick up a few things. This is a bus stop near the intersection of Telegraph Road and 12 Mile. Southfield, Michigan is to the northwest of Detroit’s city limits and this particular intersection is well into the suburb. There’s road construction work being done on this stretch of road, so the bus stop itself was apparently deemed off-limits (hence the yellow tape) in the interim. At some point in recent weeks, apparently somebody decided to do a bit of 'street-activism' and anchor two large boards to the bus stop and spray paint the messages that you see here.

The statement with ‘Maya Angelou’ in tinier spray-paint is paraphrased from a quote attributed to the late author & activist; “Nothing will work unless you do”. For comparison, closely related is an often quoted biblical edict, James 2:26, “Faith without Deeds (work) is Dead..”

As of 2020, this would be technically my second stint working at city government here; my time at the city’s Health Department was upended with the city’s bankruptcy declaration in 2013. At the time, the entire Health Department was “zeroed out” of the budget and all services became privatized at a newly created nonprofit. The nonprofit hired some of us back but circa 2010 – 2016 I was mostly working part-time only, and then not at all when the nonprofit laid me off in January of 2016. No 30 day notice, no two week notice, just (I’m paraphrasing) “ We like you, but times are tough, contract money is running out, and…” Me and about eight other folks had to clear our desks out the same day. The Health Department as a city-run entity eventually returned, but its headquarters is at a different building entirely. The old “Herman Kiefer” facility—a sprawling, multi-building former tuberculosis hospital on the near-westside of town—is still empty. A real estate developer made an announcement after buying the property in 2017, but nothing’s happened quite yet.

For the past three and a half years I’ve had an office management role with the city of Detroit’s police department, and downtown at that. Since earning a B.S. in Mass Communications in 2012, for the better part of eight years I’ve been looking for work that at minimum requires at least a bachelor’s degree. No such luck yet— my current job only requires a high school diploma—and I earned an M.A. in Social Justice Studies back in 2018. (What's good, Tay Gale Tai Jennifer Farwa Lillian Nathaniel). I’ve also had to deal with being reduced to a four-day work week, likely for at least the next 18 months as city budget issues are sorted out due to Covid-19-related revenue shortcomings. The city’s main convention center was converted to a field hospital about six weeks ago. That status hasn’t changed, pending a potential new spike in afflictions.

Compared to more than a few folks, I’ve had no choice but to be exposed to the—ahem— “both sides” of this societal chasm that has widened brutally in recent weeks. And I’m sure, for at least several months to come, there will be more to hear, directly and indirectly. I’m fielding phone calls (and social-distanced in-person interactions) from people in varying states of anger, bewilderment, sorrow, and concern. The culmination of these interconnected events in different spots of the country has yet to manifest, despite what those in the news media business may be in the habit of suggesting. No, you didn't wake up in the Twilight Zone, but Rod Serling might even be dumbstruck at what's going down now.

In this at-the-moment context, what work needs to be done? Individually and collectively? There are no small amount of buzzwords, phrases, and acronyms being disbursed omnidirectionally in the past couple of weeks. “Black Lives Matter”. “Systemic Bias”. “Stay Woke”. “Allyship”. “Agency”. “Check your privilege”. Depending on who is typing it, saying it, spray-painting it, or even hearing it, any number of these words or statements can concurrently be rallying cries and admonitions at one end of the cultural spectrum. Towards the other end of the spectrum, these same words and phrases are ‘irritating’, ‘divisive’ ‘PC’ sloganeering; perhaps even seditious. Reactions depend in part on interpersonal, social experiences, beginning with family, and then expanding: places of school. Places of worship. Places of work. Learning from these encounters is of course, ever-evolving. Not exclusively tied to one major experience- but rather, the aggregation of smaller, more intimate experiences. From early childhood forward.

During my time growing up in Gary, Indiana, I was sent to parochial, Catholic schools from kindergarten through the 12th grade. I attended St. Mary of the Lake Elementary school for K – 8, with the sole exception of having attended another parochial school for second grade, St. Mark Elementary. (what's good Raquel Eric ) Apparently, my mother fudged my birth certificate to get me started in kindergarten a year before I normally would have been accepted for enrollment.

St. Mary’s was on the opposite side of town from where we lived, in a neighborhood district called Miller. (what's good Jim , Rene). School started at 8 a.m. My mom usually drove me to school. Whether it was simply the rigors of getting young kids ready for school or what, I don’t know (I had four much-older siblings), but I tended to arrive late every day, usually between 10 and 20 minutes after classes began. For a number of years, that was kind of my unofficial trademark. I usually got good grades (reading/spelling was my favorite class besides Art) and I was generally on the honor roll, so I suppose that helped in my favor.

During my one-year stint at St. Mark’s for second grade, apparently the head priest/principal was more conservative regarding this particular quirk of my attendance. One day I remember being called from the playground by the principal, Father Heimer, and he took me into a meeting room where he gave me a ‘pop quiz’ of sorts on Catholic theology. I totally forget what I was able to answer and what I wasn’t. After that, I don’t recall hearing anything more about that encounter from him. It would be a few years later, overhearing conversations from my mother, I found out that Father Heimer was trying to have me expelled, excellent grades and good “citizenship” marks notwithstanding. (From a flimsy angle of me not having ‘in-depth’ comprehension of arcane Catholic philosophy- at the age of seven.)

There was also apparently a heated conversation between he and my mother, the climax of which found him hurling a telephone in my mother’s direction. (This wasn’t the cell-phone era, by the way, Gen-Z folks). I wasn’t present for this particular “discussion”. My mother strongly felt that any number of institutions had bigotry embedded within them, both overt and covert, including in church settings. She was always more confrontational than not in letting her feelings known about these sort of issues. Mom’s assessment of Father Heimer (who was Caucasian) was that he was being “sideways racist” and she told him as such, though likely a lot more colorfully. Hence the telephone. In any case, I finished out the year at St. Mark’s but went back to St. Mary’s for the third grade.

I suppose this period of my life—the first few years of elementary school—was one in which my awareness of the concept of race began to form. I have the vaguest recollection of being in first grade, 5 or 6 years old, and a classmate, Greg—who was white—asked me, “Chris, [even though] you’re light-skinned, ain’t you still black?”
(My father, who was African-American, had a pale-skinned complexion which passed on to me.)

I didn’t have an answer.

I also don’t recall where the conversation began or where it ended (there were a few other students around.) It also wasn’t a moment of hostility. Apparently, he was just curious; and I hadn’t thought about it one way or the other. Shortly after this, a conversation at home with my brother Jeffery semi-clarified things for me, though most of it was still well above my head. To be sure, there was a range of skin tones in my extended family (What's good Scotty Alan Stephen Veronica Veronique Tracey). I just accepted it without any particular curiosity.

But another dim recollection I have in learning about America’s racial gaps was a brief exchange with my Dad while riding in the family car. Dad had been somewhat of a golf hobbyist in the years prior to my birth; he and his brother were taught the game by their uncle. He had a bag full of drivers that was kept in the basement of the house. Especially during this time frame, public courses—typically city or county-owned—were the default norm for African American golf enthusiasts. My Dad would sometimes take my older brother Patrick and me to a miniature golf park in one of Gary’s nearby suburbs, Griffith. There was also a driving range on the grounds. I enjoyed visiting and trying to get the golf ball to reach the target hole with all of the funny traps. This one particular afternoon, though, Dad and I happened to be driving by a different private golf facility in the vicinity, Griffith Golf Club. This was a more traditional golf course with whatever other amenities these facilities usually offer. Looking out the back window, I pointed it out as a “golfing place”, but Dad was casually disdainful.

“Nuh-uh, Baby-Man [his pet term for me, back then]…. White people only.”

Again, I didn’t have much of a response. I doubt if I inquired much further. It would be in the years that followed when I would occasionally hear comments from my mother, about how racist that particular business was and how it turned down my father for membership for inarticulate reasons. During the time that I was growing up, Dad seemed disinterested in playing “real” golf anymore; he just stuck with taking me to the miniature golf place while he went to the driving range. Whether the Griffith Golf Club had anything to do with that, I don’t know. Dad’s been deceased for 26 years now; I never got the chance to ask.

I spent the summer before starting high school visiting family in Detroit, as I did most summers while growing up. The trip back ended up being rather traumatic. I was 13 at the time. (Around the time I became middle-school aged, Dad didn’t travel to Detroit anymore.) My mother and I left from Detroit by car later in the afternoon, around 6 p.m. or so. We headed down I-94, as per usual. Typically it’s about a four-hour drive between Detroit and Gary, barring any major traffic slowdowns. This time… it was a whole lot longer than four hours.

I suppose we were traveling for barely an hour when the first state trooper pulled us over, purportedly for speeding. The second stop occurred by dusk. Nightfall had occurred by the third time we were stopped, by yet a third different officer. We were in the vicinity of Paw Paw Township in Van Buren County. My mother was openly perturbed at this point, and let the officer know. The “debate” went on for several minutes. Maybe 15 minutes later another state trooper car shows up. In retrospect I’m not sure what was racing through my mind other than wanting this to be over. Shortly after the second trooper pulls up, the officer asked my mother to accompany him near their car. My mother told me to stay put as she got out of our car and walked back to where the officers were. I was out of earshot, and the background noise of cars driving past on the highway was also prominent. The lights of the police car behind us were glaring, though I don’t think I turned my head to look that often. I don’t know how much time passed: 20 minutes… a half hour… more… by the time that one of the officers—all of them that we encountered were white—came to retrieve me from our car, and brought me to one of their vehicles where my mother was now handcuffed in the back seat. I was in tears. One of the officers brought me into the other police car—I was put in the front seat—and drove me to the police station. He tried to engage with some perfunctory small talk—explaining how the radio-dispatch equipment worked. But my mind wasn’t on anything like that at all.

I suppose it took about 10 – 15 minutes to arrive at the police station. I was walked to a lobby where I sat for the next several hours. At least initially, I intermittently attempted to read whatever magazines were lying nearby. I don’t remember any other visitors in the lobby. The only other person I saw was an African American female officer behind an information desk with bullet-proof glass. By this time it was well after 11 p.m. I didn’t see my mother until the next morning. Our car was apparently towed to an impound lot.

Apparently my mother was able to get in contact with my brother Jeffrey back in Gary (he was in his early 20s by now), and told him what was going on. I’m not sure if I slept much at all in the lobby; I can only presume it was around 7 a.m. or so the next day when he and a female cousin arrived, having driven there from Gary. I don’t remember how much the bail was. I had been given about $50 by my great aunt shortly before my Mom and I had left Detroit. I gave that to Jeffrey and combined with the money he had, he paid the bond. My mother was released, and our car was retrieved. Whatever the charge(s) was, in a later court appearance (I didn’t attend) they were later dropped or dismissed or diverted into a court fine, and that was that; legally, anyway. In later conversations that my mother would reveal, the officers on the highway provocatively asked her about “her street name” (in other words, prostitution) during their argument; upon later retrieving her belongings from the lone African American female officer at the station, she was told that Van Buren County is effectively a “sundown town” that unofficially but deliberately targeted blacks unprovoked for detainment and arrest.

I'll have to take the knocks for not currently being able to forgive those men for their harassment and belligerence. The emotional memory of this encounter has stuck with me until today. As a consequence, do I hate all cops? Not hardly. Particularly since starting my current job, I’ve become acquainted with dozens of officers. But the event has imbued me with a certain wariness. A certain… hyper-awareness, of driving by myself in unfamiliar territory. Especially after dark.

As per usual, my introversion compelled me to retreat into a role that I would find myself in for years to come: more of the quiet observer; watching, listening; mindful, but almost always contemplating. Searching for contexts. Deeper meanings. Connections.

Fast-forward several decades later, and since March, millions of folks are wearing masks in public and at work as a preventative measure in the midst of a global pandemic, while some openly balk at this… because reasons. Indeed, some state capitals have been dramatically occupied by folks ostensibly upset about statewide restrictions placed on business and recreational activity in attempts to mitigate the still-highly communicable Covid-19 virus.

As society nationwide was disrupted in some form, it quickly became glaringly clear that black Americans were being afflicted with the coronavirus—and most certainly, dying from it—at rates that far outweighed the pace of affliction and mortality of Caucasians. (Though to be clear, no one was immune!) Understandably, African Americans nationwide were quite alarmed: a virus leading to an affliction with no known cure, not even a passable treatment. As mere weeks passed, the official levels of the sick and the dead rose dramatically, and as haphazardly conveyed public health advice was adopted—or not—scarcely anyone within African American social circles—especially as abetted by modern social media ties—could legitimately say that they knew of no one who had not been directly impacted. As such, the spectacles of state capitol-based protests—unmasked, select participants brandishing really big firearms, some waving Confederate flags (and that other, really goofy one that’s yellow with the snake), left me more than a little puzzled. Again, the specific points of contention varied state by state, but from my own modest perch, having a year’s supply of toilet paper at the ready wasn’t protecting anyone from being laid out. Also, even if my favorite paint store was closed—shout out to the small business owners— I figure giving the back deck a touch-up could wait. I am culturally informed that neither these protesters nor their ancestors were ever on the receiving end of Jim Crow laws and customs, which my grandparents knew well. Discomfort is one thing. It’s real, no doubt. But claiming to be genuinely oppressed? How droll.

In the midst of this one particular public health nightmare—the last to substantively visit American shores causing nationwide mass death was 100 years ago—that other, reoccurring public health nightmare came crashing into our social media feeds and our preferred radio or TV stations: that of someone black who is placed in harm’s way, injured or outright killed at the hands of someone who is in law enforcement or considers him or herself empowered or deputized to act as such. The deaths/killings/murder of people like George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arberry are known world wide now, as is the videotaped interaction between an avid birdwatcher and the woman so galled by being asked to leash her dog in a public park that she calls the police (while of course, making sure to highlight that the birdwatcher is a black male. Incidentally, both of these folks’ surname is Cooper. To indulge in a bit of mordant speculation, could it be that they are distant kin? And if so, how ironically obscene would it be that white, female Cooper, some 150+ years removed from the slavery era, reasserted her privilege by threatening the safety of black, male Cooper on a whim? The more things change, the more things get worse.

Gaping wound, meet a handful of salt. And a knife. And a vice. And a firecracker.

No one black had to be shown a video to believe it was possible. But here it was. In the case of Mr. Floyd, nearly nine minutes of ‘torture porn’ was on display, for anyone with the stomach to watch the entire clip. (I haven’t.) The incident involving the late Ahmaud Auberry in Brunswick, Georgia, is similarly grisly, based on the released footage. Body cams were not worn when Breonna Taylor’s home was raided by police to find a man who was already in custody. If it only takes a spark to start a fire, these were flamethrowers.

During my stint at the Health Department, I learned that before the Covid-19 pandemic, black women’s childbirth mortality rate vastly outpaces that of white women. Is it mitigated by income levels? No. This death rate is “pan-income”. To date, 14 American states still have declined Medicaid expansion: most of these states are in the Deep South, the former Confederate states. Make of it what you will.

American Independence Day is weeks away, but the fireworks are already here. But people are not celebrating. Hobbled little by the ongoing social-distancing warnings, cities and towns nationwide gave rise to crowded anti-brutality demonstrations, this time most of them being predominately black. Of course, depending on the city, there are several other racial cohorts represented in many of these events. What has unfolded at these events has, again, wildly varied: from tense, mutually guarded standoffs to peaceful marches to outright brawling and vandalism, it’s all been happening in real time. People have been arrested, injured, and some have died. Accusations and counter-accusations of being infiltrated by instigators; angry postings in print and video by civilians, law enforcement and policymakers alike are a sea of mines, never knowing what’s going to cause an explosion. To paraphrase Chief Brody in the movie Jaws: We’re all going to need bigger boats. Or maybe that just makes them easier to sink.

So far, I believe I have refrained from referring to a person who is centered in a myriad of these kind of discussions on the Interwebs. In truth, the (inter)national malaise that we are all affected by goes fathoms deep beyond any one individual. Way deeper. Particularly for my American cohorts, this isn’t a post to tell you to vote for this or that person, either. These American Original Sins are going to be with us well after whatever happens in November, December, January. To think otherwise is to rigidly hold onto conceits of cultural self-correction that have nurtured the quagmire of institutional inequities that currently exist.

When I was in the 7th grade I could scarcely imagine knowing someone in South Africa or Ireland or France (What's good, Clinton , Feargal, Lise). Via technology, more potential cross-cultural communication is enabled than ever before. And yet here we are. “I can’t breathe”. Narratives matter. The language of journalists— and that of readers-- matter. As of 2020, “the media” is not exclusively an external organization with (most usually) corporate ownership. In the FB, Twitter, IG, TikTok, SnapChat era, “the media” also includes us. In the morass of nearly incalculable postings both public, semi-public and “private” (a virtually meaningless term to a clever hacker, or even simply the employees of Google, FB, etc.), much is revealed in what is witnessed, what is said-- and what is not said.

Decades-standing notions of what fair play and rule-abiding yields to the faithful and the nonconfrontational have been upended. Veils and curtains of our social fabric have been violently shredded. In many cases, tweaking and traditional mending is simply not an option any more. Entirely new tapestries must be conceived, and cooperatively created.

Particularly for those of us who are able-bodied, we are empowered to be deliberate, intentional and non-accidental. We have to want to learn more. We have to want to listen. We have to want to be more interactive than not. We want to be active residents in our communities, wherever they may be. We have to be willing to do the work, or… it won’t work.

“Least of all should an intellectual be there to make his/her audience feel good: the whole point is to be embarrassing, contrary, even unpleasant… The intellectual’s representations… are always tied to and ought to remain an organic part…. In society: of the poor, the disadvantaged, the voiceless, the unrepresented, the powerless..”(Edward Said, 1994)

Just a few days ago I received an E-Bay purchase that caught my eye. Someone out there was apparently selling a copy of the 1988-89 yearbook, which was my sophomore year at Andrean High. I haven’t remotely read through the whole thing yet, but during my browsing, I found myself in a few places.

I consider: if in the near future there was another quantum-leap in technology, and I was somehow able to have a Time Travel Video Chat with my maladroit 15-year-old self: what would I tell him/me? How do I explain, among other things, that he is going to be twice as likely to die by gun-related homicide as 60% of his male classmates? That there’s a strong possibility he won’t finish college at the same rate as his classmates? (check). Or that he’s culturally at higher risk for eventually having high blood pressure and diabetes? (It's tough.) Or that even if he manages to avoid prison (many of your black peers won’t), even with a college degree he may well get passed over for future jobs compared to white contemporaries with prison records? That by owning a home where most people resemble his family, the property is devalued by default? That by owning a home where most people don’t resemble his family, the neighbors may get skittish about their property values dropping? Or do I tell him/me any of this at all?

Would I tell him to be bolder, to be more assertive? To try out for a team regardless of the results? For sure.

Would I tell him to be more open to expressing inner thoughts, and less self-conscious, hopefully mitigating a slow lurch into depression? Indeed.

Would I tell him that his passion for drawing would atrophy and give way to writing as a way to vent? Not sure.

Would I tell him to ask out the girls that he was always fearful of what the answer would be? Maybe.

Would I tell him that in the future there will be both a US President and a Spider-Man that look like him? Definitely.

But more than that, what would be the most salient message that I could offer? If the renewable-energy-powered Time Travel Video Chat clock was ticking and about to expire (taking at least a year to recharge), what could I convey that would offer hope and pride and affirmation? What does anxiety-ridden, fatigued, Middle-Aged Me have to console Teen Me, as events unfold in his future that suggest arrested mobility, mass suffering and catastrophe are increasingly becoming the norm? “Christopher… if for whatever reasons you are feeling marginalized, invisible, impotent, or under assault, just remember..”

“Your Life Matters.”