“Do you ever get the feeling the world is tired, Walt?”
~ The Cold Dish: A Walt Longmire Mystery by Craig Johnson
I had to call the
driving range a couple days ago. I needed to get hold of Ronald, and he has
taken to leaving his cell phone in the car. “Why carry it? No one ever calls
me,” he says in explanation. I don’t call him often. He’s retired, and I work
from home. We are constantly in each other’s space and have little need for
additional communication tools during the times we are apart. I’ve had just a
few emergencies since working from home in which I felt the need to call him:
1) the rabid coyote rolling around our yard; 2) the escaped cockatiel hopping
toward me when I took the dog out; and 3) a couple days ago when the
sub-contractors were burying the neighbor’s cable, and it was possible they
were going to bury it on our property. They had it wrapped around one of our
trees and across our yard.
When he didn’t
answer his cell phone, I dialed the range.
“Hello, is Ron
Hagan still there?” I asked. He’s been going there for the five years we’ve
lived here, almost daily, at least weekly. He must have handed his debit card
across the counter thousands of times. The white guys on the porch, including
the owner, talk to him regularly, as you know, because I often write about
their conversations.
“Do you mean Ron
[Maverick]?” the man on the phone responded. That was one of the white guys who
sometimes works there but mostly just sits on the porch. Once he asked Ronald
if he could see a sample of my writing because he considered himself a writer,
too. Ronald handed him a copy of my essay, What’s
Race Got to Do with It? The next time Ronald showed up at the range, the
guys on the porch were passing it back and forth, and the pristine sheets were
dog-eared and creased. “Um, do you mind if we read this?” one of the guys asked
Ronald as he stepped onto the porch.
“No, Ron Hagan. He
was hitting balls. I need to speak with him,” I continued on the phone.
“Oh, black Ron,” the
range owner said.
I paused. I took a
breath.
“Yes, that’s him.”
Ronald picked up
the phone a few minutes later, and he came home to check and see if the
sub-contractors had buried the cable correctly. I had already gone up and checked after I got off the phone,
and they had done it correctly. If there had been a problem, though, I prefer
Ronald to take care of it. He’s much more assertive than I am, and he knows
code enforcement from his career as a firefighter.
When he got home I
said, “You have a new name, black Ron.”
He screwed his
mouth in disgust. “Figures,” he said.
All the white guys
had read my essay. They know I’m white.
“He knows I’m
white, but my voice didn’t match what he thought I’d sound like, and he
couldn’t make the connection.”
“That’s it,
exactly.”
Later I told my
mother-in-law about it.
“Really? That’s terrible!”
she said.
Maybe many readers
are saying, “What’s the big deal? Skin color is an identifying characteristic.”
Yes, it is, but
after five years of almost daily contact, that’s the only way to describe
someone? I’d feel more comfortable about it if the owner of the range described
the two men named Ron as “white Ron” and “black Ron.” That makes sense, if you
are distinguishing between the two and you don’t know last names. But if one is Ron [Maverick] and the
other is black Ron, I am offended, and so was Ronald. Don’t get me wrong. We
laughed about it. But see how deeply race is ingrained in people’s perceptions
and how they categorize and recognize others? Not as individuals but as a color
or a race, and it apparently doesn’t go away by close association and the
passage of time.
It’s the same
reason I am offended whenever a reporter, or anyone for that matter, identifies
President Obama as the black president or Tiger Woods as the black golfer. What
is the need for the additional qualifier? I realize it’s about firsts and
minorities – for a long time men who became nurses were called male nurses.
Women dominated the nursing field, and men were few and far between.
I hope that’s
changed by now, and I wish we could move forward with the added description of race
that is used to describe people of minority races only. If race is not used as
a descriptor, usually a person is describing a white person, a “race-less”
person.
People have
mentioned to Ronald and me at different times that we should tell people who we
are married to, as in, “My black husband Ronald is mowing the lawn,” or “My
white wife Dianne expects me home early so we can go out to dinner.” Maybe we
should start by identifying everyone by race: conservative white radio host
Rush Limbaugh; Asian basketball player Jeremy Lin; retired black basketball
player Charles Barkley, white actor George Clooney; black singer Patti LaBelle,
or white presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Do you think people would tire of
it? I know I am tired already.
I’m tired and
scared of how dangerous our country is, too. James Holmes, dressed in riot
gear, smoke bombed an Aurora, CO theater during the midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises, then
systematically shot an AR15 and a Glock into the crowd of movie goers jam-packed
into the theater. Latest numbers are 12 dead and 59 injured. He told the police
he was the Joker, one of Batman’s enemies.
The Joker is a
dark, evil character voiced in animation by Larry Storch and Mark Hamill, among
others, and portrayed on TV and film by Caesar Romero, Jack Nicholson, and
Heath Ledger. Ledger’s portrayal was particularly dark, psychotic and
remorseless. Ledger worked hard to stay in character, and he had trouble
sleeping during the shoot. Some say the portrayal contributed to his depressed mood
and death caused by accidental overdose in the months before the movie was
released.
Here is an excerpt
from an article in the Daily News
titled Jack Nicholson warned Heath Ledger
on 'Joker' role that talks about the
role and the effect it had on Ledger:
Jack
Nicholson, who played the Joker in 1989 - and who was furious he wasn't
consulted about the creepy role - offered a cryptic comment when told Ledger
was dead.
"Well,"
Nicholson told reporters in London early Wednesday, "I warned
him."
Though
the remark was ambiguous, there's no question the role in the movie earmarked
as this summer's blockbuster took a frightening toll.
Ledger
recently told reporters he "slept an average of two hours a night"
while playing "a psychopathic, mass-murdering, schizophrenic clown with
zero empathy.
"I
couldn't stop thinking. My body was exhausted, and my mind was still
going."
Prescription
drugs didn't help, he said.
Holmes may be
mentally ill or maybe not, and we don’t know his motives. What we know is that
he was able to obtain weapons, body armor, and a gas mask. He booby-trapped his
apartment with explosives. How did
he get these weapons and explosives?
Here’s what I got
off ABCnews.com about James Holmes:
Suspected
Colorado movie theater gunman James Holmes purchased four guns at local shops
and more than 6,000 rounds of ammunition on the Internet in the past 60 days,
Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates told a news conference this evening.
"All
the ammunition he possessed, he possessed legally, all the weapons he
possessed, he possessed legally, all the clips he possessed, he possessed
legally," an emotional Oates said.
Read the full
article at http://abcnews.go.com/US/colorado-movie-theater-shooting-suspect-bought-guns-6000/story?id=16817842#.UAoPZGZhXKw
Colorado is a state
that strongly supports the second amendment. The NY Times said this about Colorado gun control in the article Colorado Gun Laws Remain Lax, Despite
Changes after Columbine:
As
a mountain state, Colorado has a history of broad support for Second Amendment
rights. But in the years since the Columbine tragedy, the state’s lawmakers and
voters passed some gun restrictions, including requirements governing the sale
of firearms at gun shows, a law regulating people’s ability to carry concealed
weapons and legislation banning “straw purchases” of weapons for people who
would not qualify to buy them legitimately.
…
Despite
the changes over the past 13 years, Colorado law still prohibits local
governments from restricting gun rights in several significant ways. Moreover,
gun rights organizations have successfully fought other efforts to restrict
access to guns, including blocking a University of Colorado rule prohibiting
concealed weapons on campus.
People
in Colorado are allowed to carry firearms in a vehicle, loaded or unloaded,
as long as the gun is intended for lawful uses like personal protection or
protecting property.
Carrying
a concealed weapon requires a permit, but Colorado is among those states whose
rules on permits are relatively lax, said Heather Morton of the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Colorado is one of 38 “shall issue” states. She explained that this meant “if a
person complies with all of the requirements, then the state must issue a
concealed weapons permit.” (By other measures, the number of states whose laws
amount to “shall issue” is closer to 41.) Factors that might keep someone from
being able to get a permit generally include felony convictions, mental illness
or protective orders.
Other
states have a slightly tougher “may issue” law, which gives discretion to
withhold a permit to an authority like the local sheriff or department of
public safety.
Read the entire
article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/21/us/colorado-gun-laws-remain-lax-despite-changes-after-columbine.html
We live in a diverse,
divisive, and increasingly polarized country. Race, class, ethnicity, gender
orientation, political views, and religious beliefs divide our country, and it
seems that violence is often a threat against those who disagree or who are
different. I am reminded of some of the horrible things that were said of
homosexuals in my home state before the passage of Amendment One that defines
marriage in the state constitution: hateful things, violent things. How can
anyone hate another individual that much?
Just as we live in
a country that has strong views on gun ownership, we also live in a culture
that promotes celebrity at any price. What lengths will someone go to in order
to obtain fame? From sexually explicit YouTube and Facebook clips to mass
murder, it’s anyone’s guess.
Fears are also
prevalent in our culture. They range from insecurities about looks, exposure to
germs, and what the Joneses own that you don’t to the loss of white dominance,
terrorist attacks, and changes in the country that are more pro-socialist than
pro-capitalist. There is the constant fear of an uprising: will it be a class
uprising, or a race-motivated uprising? These fears are fueled daily through
the media, especially on the Internet, and through the words of politicians who
use fear to drive votes. This horrible, unimaginable killing spree was primed
to occur, there in Aurora, CO, or anywhere in the country.
I can only imagine
the backlash this tragedy will inspire. People arming up and carrying to the
grocery store, the movie theater, the park, out to eat, at the kids’
playground, on a walk through the neighborhood. I’m more concerned by the
prospect of frightened and skittish Joe America shooting me than I am of a
mentally ill person opening fire in a crowd. The Aurora tragedy is huge, but
the percentage of such an occurrence happening again is small.
More likely to
happen is a child finding a parent’s firearm and shooting himself or a sibling,
a domestic violence incident or murder, a homeowner mistaking a stranger as a
threat and shooting the person, or a neighborhood watch president like George
Zimmerman, trying to play hero, trailing and shooting a person who happens to
be in the wrong place at the wrong time, even though he belonged there, like
Trayvon Martin. I see the possibility of people, who consider themselves good,
law-abiding people, ending up in a shoot out over a perceived offense, a moment
of road rage, or a moment of self-righteous judgment. Suddenly everyone in the
crowd pulls out his gun and everyone is aiming at everyone else. We’ve all seen
that scene in movies. I love those kinds of movies, because of the total
improbability of it ever occurring in real life. But is this what we’re coming to?
We need better gun
control, similar to what states like New York have. We need to take assault
weapons off the street by re-enacting the Federal Assault Weapons Ban
originally passed under the Clinton administration in 1994. It expired in 2004
under the law’s sunset provision. Although there have been attempts to renew
the ban, a new vote has never reached the senate floor.
The only reason
someone would purchase an assault weapon is the intent to kill another person. It’s
the drive to achieve a level of protection that puts the owner at the top of
the food chain while the rest of us dwell on a link below. What other motive
could s/he possibly have? Do we need that kind of personal protection when we
have police forces, security everywhere, and the military? I don’t think so.
Maybe we are all
tired. I know I am. I am tired of
being offended and feeling afraid, not of the rare mentally ill person who
commits a tragic act, but by the reaction of everyone else left to experience
the aftereffects. I wish we could learn to love ourselves better, so we could
begin to love our neighbors. Then we would be better stewards of this tired
world and allow it and us to rest and heal.
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