What does one say about Nelson Mandela that doesn't come across as sounding like a cliché, or that hasn't already been said a thousand times or more? The man was a great man. A giant. Yes, probably as time goes by there will be those who will step forward and tell the world about his flaws, but for now, the world is united in laying him to rest. Now, let's hope his legacy will continue.
I am sad that Nelson Mandela is dead, but at 95 his death should not come as a surprise. He lived a long, full and completed life. It wasn't thrown away on senselessness like so many others. Nor was it cut short by an assassin like Dr. Martin Luther King's. Who knows what the two could have done together?
But there is a cynical side of me that says that Nelson Mandela is a hero to much of the world precisely because he lived in South Africa and not in the United States. South Africa is on the other side of the world. It's a long way away. Would his message of truth and reconciliation been as well received here or would he find it hijacked by extremists and himself called an "Uncle Tom" or worse?
I say this with a heavy heart because there are times when I look at race relations in this country and I think maybe the separatists on both sides are right, that we really can't live together and maybe all the whites should have their own place and all the blacks their own place (perhaps on opposite ends of the country so they wouldn't have to interact). But where would that leave all of us in the middle, black, white or mixed, who really don't give a damn about anything except wanting to live at peace with our neighbors no matter what color they are and to do the right thing without having to walk on racial eggshells? What I am seeing disturbs me, and I hope it is just my Asperger's and my inborn white racial bias, and that I am wrong and things really aren't like this at all. I am seeing a trend that if a white person does something to a black person, God help him or her. It is ok for whites to do things to whites and blacks to do things to blacks and ok for blacks to do things to whites but if a white person crosses that line, look out. I do hope I am wrong about this, but there have been several well-publicized cases in the news that makes me wonder where we as a country are headed for this.
The recent Renisha McBride shooting in Michigan is a case in point. Renisha was an African-American teenager who was shot by a white homeowner when she knocked on his door in the wee hours of the morning seeking help after a car accident because her cell phone was dead. That is how the story first came out and I was concerned, not because of the racial aspect, but because I am a woman and I could very well see myself in the same situation. However, as I pointed out to King Oni in an entirely unrelated discussion quite a while back, in a society like ours in America that worships the Second Amendment, it's not a good idea to go knocking on doors if you don't know who is on the other side. I meant that metaphorically, but in Renisha's case, it was literal.
However, it turned out that the story is much more complicated than that. It turns out that Ms. McBride, who was a minor, had a blood alcohol count that was nearly three times the legal limit of 0.8 at the time she was shot. Since considerable time had elapsed between the time she crashed her car and the time she wound up on the fatal porch that means God only knows how much more was in her system to begin with. She was not just drunk, she was drunk as a skunk. And that does change things.
Before anyone starts throwing things at me, I want to ask them, have they ever woken up in the middle of the night to find an uninvited person in their bedroom between them and the phone, with no means of defending themselves? If they have, then fire away. If they have NOT, then sit down and listen. I HAVE been in that situation. Please do not tell me about calling the police, unless you have also been in the situation where you have to patiently explain to them over and over that yes, you know this person, but no, this is not your boyfriend/girlfriend, this is someone you work with and just because you may have smiled at them in the hallway at work does not give them the right to invade your house, there is no relationship here, this is not a lover's quarrel, etc., etc., etc. Yes, I've been there, too.
It is situations like these that make gun-owning very attractive. I don't own a gun because I believe with "To Kill A Mockingbird's" Atticus Finch, that having a gun around is just asking for trouble. I know there are a bunch of Second Amendment diehards that will say I may live to regret that attitude. However, I do not want the responsibilities that comes with gun ownership, one of them being the willingness to take the consequences for using that weapon. Let's just say that there is one young man walking around today who is very lucky that I did not have a gun, because when he crawled up to my bed and said, "It's me, Reggie, be cool", I said to him, "I will NOT be cool. You are lucky I don't have a gun because I would have blown your head off first and asked questions about it afterwards." And I would have, too.
Would I have shot Renisha? I don't know. Probably not. But I would have definitely reached for my gun when I heard someone at my door at that time of the night. The homeowner isn't saying anything, but I wouldn't be surprised if it comes out in the trial that he's been invaded before. You don't ever, ever forget that. I'm not saying that it was right to shoot her, but I don't think it was deliberate or racially motivated. The guy was just plain frightened, in my book, and he may have had reason to be.
Meanwhile, people are crying "Justice for Renisha" like this was a Deep South lynching. They are demanding that the homeowner be charged with second-degree murder and not manslaughter. Well, they may get their "justice". Funny things come out in trials. Like, where was Renisha BEFORE she got in her car? Generally speaking, people that have high BAC counts like hers usually don't get that way by drinking alone. And she was a minor, so either she had a fake ID (which wasn't mentioned) or she was with others who supplied the alcohol. Last time I knew it was illegal to serve alcohol to anyone under 21 in Michigan, so there might be some people who might want to rethink this whole trial business. Because that is a question that might very well come up--where was she and who was she with? And what about friends don't let friends drive drunk? Some friends she had. She might very well be still alive today had she had better friends. Wonder where they are now? And where is the outcry for justice for the young man who was shot at the community center in my town earlier this year? Nothing but silence there.
They say that she had a lot of promise in her life. Had. But bad decisions led to a fateful encounter on a porch. Yes, her death is a tragedy. And a waste. And it should be acknowledged as such so that others don't die in vain.
I am sad that Nelson Mandela is dead, but at 95 his death should not come as a surprise. He lived a long, full and completed life. It wasn't thrown away on senselessness like so many others. Nor was it cut short by an assassin like Dr. Martin Luther King's. Who knows what the two could have done together?
But there is a cynical side of me that says that Nelson Mandela is a hero to much of the world precisely because he lived in South Africa and not in the United States. South Africa is on the other side of the world. It's a long way away. Would his message of truth and reconciliation been as well received here or would he find it hijacked by extremists and himself called an "Uncle Tom" or worse?
I say this with a heavy heart because there are times when I look at race relations in this country and I think maybe the separatists on both sides are right, that we really can't live together and maybe all the whites should have their own place and all the blacks their own place (perhaps on opposite ends of the country so they wouldn't have to interact). But where would that leave all of us in the middle, black, white or mixed, who really don't give a damn about anything except wanting to live at peace with our neighbors no matter what color they are and to do the right thing without having to walk on racial eggshells? What I am seeing disturbs me, and I hope it is just my Asperger's and my inborn white racial bias, and that I am wrong and things really aren't like this at all. I am seeing a trend that if a white person does something to a black person, God help him or her. It is ok for whites to do things to whites and blacks to do things to blacks and ok for blacks to do things to whites but if a white person crosses that line, look out. I do hope I am wrong about this, but there have been several well-publicized cases in the news that makes me wonder where we as a country are headed for this.
The recent Renisha McBride shooting in Michigan is a case in point. Renisha was an African-American teenager who was shot by a white homeowner when she knocked on his door in the wee hours of the morning seeking help after a car accident because her cell phone was dead. That is how the story first came out and I was concerned, not because of the racial aspect, but because I am a woman and I could very well see myself in the same situation. However, as I pointed out to King Oni in an entirely unrelated discussion quite a while back, in a society like ours in America that worships the Second Amendment, it's not a good idea to go knocking on doors if you don't know who is on the other side. I meant that metaphorically, but in Renisha's case, it was literal.
However, it turned out that the story is much more complicated than that. It turns out that Ms. McBride, who was a minor, had a blood alcohol count that was nearly three times the legal limit of 0.8 at the time she was shot. Since considerable time had elapsed between the time she crashed her car and the time she wound up on the fatal porch that means God only knows how much more was in her system to begin with. She was not just drunk, she was drunk as a skunk. And that does change things.
Before anyone starts throwing things at me, I want to ask them, have they ever woken up in the middle of the night to find an uninvited person in their bedroom between them and the phone, with no means of defending themselves? If they have, then fire away. If they have NOT, then sit down and listen. I HAVE been in that situation. Please do not tell me about calling the police, unless you have also been in the situation where you have to patiently explain to them over and over that yes, you know this person, but no, this is not your boyfriend/girlfriend, this is someone you work with and just because you may have smiled at them in the hallway at work does not give them the right to invade your house, there is no relationship here, this is not a lover's quarrel, etc., etc., etc. Yes, I've been there, too.
It is situations like these that make gun-owning very attractive. I don't own a gun because I believe with "To Kill A Mockingbird's" Atticus Finch, that having a gun around is just asking for trouble. I know there are a bunch of Second Amendment diehards that will say I may live to regret that attitude. However, I do not want the responsibilities that comes with gun ownership, one of them being the willingness to take the consequences for using that weapon. Let's just say that there is one young man walking around today who is very lucky that I did not have a gun, because when he crawled up to my bed and said, "It's me, Reggie, be cool", I said to him, "I will NOT be cool. You are lucky I don't have a gun because I would have blown your head off first and asked questions about it afterwards." And I would have, too.
Would I have shot Renisha? I don't know. Probably not. But I would have definitely reached for my gun when I heard someone at my door at that time of the night. The homeowner isn't saying anything, but I wouldn't be surprised if it comes out in the trial that he's been invaded before. You don't ever, ever forget that. I'm not saying that it was right to shoot her, but I don't think it was deliberate or racially motivated. The guy was just plain frightened, in my book, and he may have had reason to be.
Meanwhile, people are crying "Justice for Renisha" like this was a Deep South lynching. They are demanding that the homeowner be charged with second-degree murder and not manslaughter. Well, they may get their "justice". Funny things come out in trials. Like, where was Renisha BEFORE she got in her car? Generally speaking, people that have high BAC counts like hers usually don't get that way by drinking alone. And she was a minor, so either she had a fake ID (which wasn't mentioned) or she was with others who supplied the alcohol. Last time I knew it was illegal to serve alcohol to anyone under 21 in Michigan, so there might be some people who might want to rethink this whole trial business. Because that is a question that might very well come up--where was she and who was she with? And what about friends don't let friends drive drunk? Some friends she had. She might very well be still alive today had she had better friends. Wonder where they are now? And where is the outcry for justice for the young man who was shot at the community center in my town earlier this year? Nothing but silence there.
They say that she had a lot of promise in her life. Had. But bad decisions led to a fateful encounter on a porch. Yes, her death is a tragedy. And a waste. And it should be acknowledged as such so that others don't die in vain.
