BLACK AND WHITE COOL NEEDED

as long as we have words

     As we struggle with race in America here's an interesting  perspective. Picture last week's victims of police violence and the murdered police officers in Dallas as children. Picture the executioners as children as well. Reflect on that for a moment-once they all were kids, playful, innocent and not yet ensnared in the virus of racism.

     I heard author Kwame Alexander pose that idea and it cuts to the heart of the matter.  

     I've posted previously about KLAN the documentary I wrote, produced and directed that examined how racism is passed through generations. There are moments when children are free from the poison of hatred. Those are moments of hope and possibility. We become discouraged we cannot evolve or eradicate the psychology and seeds of prejudice. But it does happen. In my study of the klan we heard a young daughter of a klan leader say "...they should shoot all the niggers or put them back in the slave houses."  10 years later in a re-visit of the documentary that girl, now a young woman, apologized explaining how wrong she had been. But it came with a price. She was rejected by her father and thrown out of their home. 

a hot summer in the city

      It was during an earlier season of racial tension when cities were erupting. Dick Lugar was still a relatively new mayor and Indianapolis was in a metamorphosis from an aging rust belt old industrial city to the dynamic place it has become. This was in the early gearing up of the change and there were urban illnesses. His young team of visionaries were treating those malady's bit by bit while constructing a larger dream. It did not help that Cincinnati, Chicago, Gary, St Louis, Columbus, Dayton and other neighboring cities were in varying degrees of trouble and disintegration. It was a time of powder kegs.

      Indianapolis threatened to explode because of sparks coming from an area known as Highland Tech, an old neighborhood that had changed. It was near the Women's Prison, Arsenal Tech, the state's largest high school and bordered by business and industry that had eaten away at a once staid area. Now working class and those barely escaping poverty, black and white mixed and there had been shootings and violence in the streets and alleys. Race violence was suspected. The Black Panther party was thought to be responsible, or so the rumor and "consensus" had it. That was not the case.

       I spent two weeks walking house to house in the troubled area, morning, afternoon and evenings. I talked to everyone who opened the door, some would not, out of fear. I stopped people who were walking, talked with gaggles of people in alleyways, garages, on porches and street corners. One on one and with groups, black, white, those who were new to the neighborhood and long time residents. I spent time talking with Panther leaders. I learned the truth and it was something different than most people thought.

     The Panthers were not involved. In fact the shootings and and violence were the result of a couple of gangs, one a notorious white motorcycle outfit. They were warring over turf and a drug trade. I reported that. It was news to the police department and to activist groups that had been ratcheting up on a false premise. I was thanked by the Mayors office that began to work with neighbors and a neighborhood association, armed with the knowledge of the reality on the street. One racial tinderbox defused, by facts and rationality. 

     Presumptions are akin to prejudice. Both are dangerous.

America needs cool heads, honest talk, frank conversation and a government that is willing to work.

cooling walk

     As swelter and bake describe conditions where some of you reside LightBreezes provides cooling scenes.

   Though blue sky and bright sun adorned our ridge a stroll along a Pacific bluff trail in northern San Luis Obispo County presented a cooling marine fog and brisk breeze. 

    A wetland, fed by a spring creates a vibrant verdancy.

    See you down the trail.

WHO'S LIFE MATTERS? DARK PLAYS

DARK PLAYS

   Street wise and an over comer, Ricky was a friend and a great truck operator. We ate together frequently, shared an appreciation of boxing and worked on deadline to do live television. Ricky's problem was not his.
   He'd come from a neighborhood that required a toughness to simply grow up. His arms bore burn scars from his time  working in a foundry. He began as a studio camera operator. He became an engineer/operator who would "scramble" a microwave unit to the scene. It was a truck full of electronics and television gear. He was fast, smart and enabled the news department to get on the air. That was not a problem.
   Ricky and his wife, a marketing and promotion specialist, lived on the North side, in a suburban community grown from a farm village into homes, condos, apartments, appreciating businesses with a village setting and near mega shopping. Ricky was frequently stopped by the local police.
    As an African-America Ricky was a profile stop.  Though he explained where he lived, worked and produced a car registration, Ricky was stopped repeatedly.  That was an offense to Ricky and to police work and the larger society. 
   Black lives matter.

    I investigated, covered and tangled with racist hate groups for 4 decades-racism close up, urban, rural, north, south and abroad. Many reasons for it. It breeds anger and response.

     All lives matter-not to diminish the inherent and special importance that creates and imbues the mentality and philosophy of Black Lives Matter.  It is not meant to be flip  to say-Of course they do. It is an affirmation only and should  not be construed as anything else.

   How police departments and black citizens interact is a nexus requiring a fix. It is critical. Police officers need  training to help buffer and to see things with a wider sensitivity. Training for state and city police agencies can condition officers to make critical decisions influenced by a better understanding of presenting conditions and a codex of alternative tactics to employ so as to defuse and stop a tragic escalation.

    All training academies and the departments they provide can up their performance. I've reported how local and state academies train, have watched as local police take advanced training at the National Academy and spent 16 weeks following a class of agents through the FBI Academy at Quantico. 

    There are good learning systems, exercises, drills and practical application training that can focus on race, including history and perspectives. I participated in a fire arms training program where my actions and shot placement were captured, analyzed and used in the training. It required a series of critical judgements and action.  After completing a simulation scenario, where you could shoot or be shot in the interactive life like reality, you were grilled by instructors asking what you saw, heard, when and why you made decisions to do what you did and the actions you took, etc.  Its intense and the examination pulses up the heart rate and certainly engages the mind.  It's a good program and such systems can make our local cops better at what they do.

    Lives matter.

BLUE PLAYS

 Humpback Whales frolic in warmer Pacific on the central California coast.  

    Pelicans fly air support.

   Canoeists launch for a blue ride.

BEHIND THE SHOTS

Your blogger, caught in the act by eldest daughter Kristin

Caught here at Jackson Browne concert by Mike Griffin

     A final thought. Ricky and I often drove to a spot in a near east side neighborhood where they sold deep fried cat fish on white bread with mustard. As the only white man in a place, or even in that part of the neighborhood I was never stopped. It was probably more odd for a white man to be hanging out on that block in that hood than for Ricky to  drive to his apartment.

    The sandwich was world class!

     See you down the trail.