{"id":9531,"date":"2014-08-19T08:41:11","date_gmt":"2014-08-19T15:41:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/?p=9531"},"modified":"2014-11-24T21:16:02","modified_gmt":"2014-11-25T05:16:02","slug":"ferguson-fails-kings-dream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nerdseyeview.com\/blog\/2014\/08\/19\/ferguson-fails-kings-dream\/","title":{"rendered":"Where’s the Dream?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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(AP Photo\/Jeff Roberson) The Associated Press \/ Creative Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When I read about Ferguson, I find myself thinking of a friend who, on first glance, is a strapping black dude. He’s over six feet tall and he’s muscled. In certain geographical regions and inside certain small minds, this is enough to categorize my friend as a threat. He’s big. He’s black. Therefore, in some places, he’s a crime waiting to happen.<\/p>\n

This is some racist bullshit.<\/strong><\/p>\n

My friend worked as an English teacher and he’s a huge nerd. He’s a writer with a giant vocabulary and he’s got a big heart, the kind that falls in love around every corner with every new stranger who’s kind to him. He laughs out loud at the stories of middle aged white ladies and … you know what? None of this is relevant.<\/p>\n

What’s relevant is that in a whole lot of places in the United States of America, this well mannered articulate nerd could get shot on someone’s front porch for ringing the doorbell to ask for help because his car broke down and his phone is out of juice.\u00a0 I keep thinking that somewhere out there is a redneck who thinks it’s okay to shoot my friend for no other reason than his size and color. Especially his color.<\/p>\n

Again I say, this is some racist bullshit.<\/strong><\/p>\n

“I know,” I said to my friend last weekend while he was telling me yet another story about getting the stink-eye from a stranger based on nothing but his color. “I mean, I don’t know, not at all, but I know it’s fucked up.”<\/p>\n

“You can empathize,” he said. “That’s something.”<\/p>\n

But it’s nothing, it’s not enough. Here I am, another white person writing about Ferguson. Meanwhile, police stand in the streets in combat gear to fight people who have committed the crime of being born black. I think about the racism and sexism I’ve experienced personally, and it’s bitter, but it doesn’t mean I’m in mortal danger, it’s just small minded hate. We live in a world where I’m grateful for being a victim of small minded hate instead of being marked as a shooting target.<\/p>\n

I don’t know what to do about this.<\/p>\n

All I can think about is how this is some racist bullshit.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was raised without the idea that I should, by default, be afraid of people who don’t look like me. I went to college with people who don’t look like me, and later, I traveled in places where I was surrounded by people who don’t look like me. I was educated, academically and socially, out of the idea that I should fear people just because they don’t look like me. There are hundreds of other pieces of information that will help us understand who’s a danger and what’s not and none of them, not one, is the color of a person’s skin.<\/p>\n

I don’t want to be the enlightened person with “the black friend.” I don’t want my friend to be “the black friend” just like I don’t want to be anyone’s “Jewish friend.” Asian friend, check. Black friend, check. Gay friend, check. That’s racist too, and it dismisses our friends as an academic exercise in diversity, as objects.<\/p>\n

You guessed it. Racist bullshit.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I don’t really have a point, only that I’m thinking about this. Only that I’m thinking about my friends who are not white. Only that dammit, we are supposed to be better than this. Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream was for all of us. How long are we going to take to make it reality?<\/p>\n