Media Influence

I never saw a gangsta till Mtv showed me one. Well, I’m still not sure Dr. Dre and Snoop were really gangsters, but they said they were and what do I know? Maybe I was too young to notice but before this time I never saw any kind of graffiti, except on TV. That changed when someone sprayed COL POSSEY on the wall of my middle school. Shortly thereafter I remember being the only one at a party wearing pants that didn’t sag. It wasn’t my usual crew but still, I was the ONLY guy who didn’t sag. Soon thereafter my school posted rules banning bandanas, Raiders logoed gear, and baseball hats. I remember friends being upset by the ban. Thanks to that time in my life I still know how to throw up a Cryp or Blood sign. A kid I played football against lost his football scholarship and went to prison because he shot someone at a concert. The paper said it was “gang related”.
Did I mention I grew up in Sandy Utah, 99.875% white? It was, and probably still is, one of the most stable neighborhoods anywhere.

My wife never thought college was an option. She didn’t know anyone who had ever been. Well, her teachers I suppose, but they are different. No one in the family had ever been, neither had anyone in the families of any of her friends. It was never talked about, never encouraged, a simple non-issue, as if it didn’t exist. College was for white people, rich white people.

Then she saw the TV show, “A Different World”. She loved it. It had black people in college. All sorts of black people: rich “bougie” ones, nerdy ones, jocks, from the hood poor ones, everyone. It made college look cool, fun, and accessible. She decided she was going and talked to a councilor at school. Going and asking is how she found out about Georgia’s “Hope” scholarship which provides ANY student who graduates with a B average, a full tuition scholarship to any state school. She received her Bachelors with honors.

Does media have an influence?

She is Tired

“I’m not reading the book.” My wife said.

I wasn’t quite sure why. She is not always the best at finishing the books for her monthly book club but outright refusal is something new, unless its science fiction. This month was a book about some guy who grew up in the hood and then got into an Ivy League school. I asked her why she wasn’t reading it.

“I’m tired of talking about race with a bunch of white people.”

We have been here before. We have lived in all white places. We have socialized in predominantly white circles. Every time, it gets tiring for her.

It has nothing to do with any of the individual people really, there is no one to point a finger at, it’s more like everything.
Its watching and listening to a bunch of people talk and discuss the issues of a group they don’t belong too and don’t really understand. It is not fielding questions on the subject, but being used as a yard stick with which to measure that other group. It is assumptions that she isn’t really like the rest of her group, doesn’t really belong to “them”, or even possibly just the opposite.
It gets old, it gets tiring, and sometimes the things you learn about others in these discussions, you wish you didn’t.

I don’t get tired, I get worried.

I get worried for her; I want her to be happy.
I continue to talk about these things but more often when she isn’t around. I continue to talk because these things need to be talked about. Someone who has very informed opinions recently said in a blog post that talking about race doesn’t help.
I would counter by asking if not talking about race has ever helped?
When has silence on the subject ever made the problems go away?

I get worried because I fear people will stop listening because they get tired of my voice. How long can someone listen to the same note played over and over again? How many ways can I think to play this one note and keep it interesting?
I worry people will ignore what I say, writing me off as a zealot. I worry people think the issues really aren’t that important and I have simply chosen one issue to harp on and blown it out of proportion. I worry that if I focus too sharply I will lose perspective.

I worry that if I shut up, my children will be more likely to have to fight the issues I shy away from. Of course I can’t fix the world, nor can anyone fix it by the time my children become more aware, but as a father I feel I have to try. I have to set an example.

I don’t fault my wife for being tired. I think she should give it a rest, she is enlisted in this fight whether she wants to be or not. She deserves all my patience and care.

I have no patience for white people who are tired of this fight. We tend to get tired of it far too quickly, usually before it really gets going. We tire because we think it is someone else’s fight. We tire because if we ignore it, it usually ignores us. We ignore the fact that black people don’t have this luxury. Not only do we ignore it but we tend to resent their attempts to do so, disparaging all black colleges or groups, or lunch tables. We tire because we think the fight is rigged against us.

It is not.

She should be able to rest, that is why I cannot.

Sandy, Utah

I lived in the same house from birth to age 19. I haven't been to my home town, or even home state, in almost seven years. I'm thinking of taking a trip.

Black Horror Movie.

There are two routes around the block to get to my home. As we were coming home the other night, we saw up ahead, approximately 10 police cars all pulled into a small residential intersection, lights flashing. Now this is not a heavily trafficked block so the likelihood that this was an auto accident was nil.

It was in the direction of one of the usual routes home, so naturally I said, "Wow look at that! That's only a block away," and began turning toward the commotion.

My wife stopped me, looked me in the eye, and quite seriously said, "from now on you are living in a black horror movie. You know, the kind where the characters actually run AWAY from danger."

We took the alternate route home.

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