When a Harley rolls up beside me on Tenth Street, gunning its engine, drowning out ESPN radio, I roll up my car window.
I don’t suffer fools well and I subscribe to the race relations philosophy of the great drive-in movie critic and columnist Joe Bob Briggs in that I try to be an equal opportunity offender.
People who embrace so-called redneck culture confuse me. People who embrace the so-called thug life culture make me scratch my head. White supremacists frighten me and the rhetoric of Al Sharpton makes me sad.
All this said, I have struggled with racism the past couple of days since the George Zimmerman verdict.
When the news of this tragic event first broke it seemed like everyone should be up in arms. As months passed and more details came out, Trayvon Martin became less a martyr and more a troubled youth who played just as much of a role in this matter as Zimmerman did.
Zimmerman, it seems to me, was a wannabe cop, who if he thought Martin was up to no good should have just let police handle the matter. My belief is both let their testosterone get to them, Martin pounced on a provoking Zimmerman and Zimmerman did what he had to do to survive.
Soon after the verdict, the cries of where’s the justice began. In my opinion, justice was served because the jurors applied the law given to them by the judge and did not act on sheer emotion.
Now it’s all come down to race and I find myself stranded on Reason Island thinking it’s not about race at all to me but it is to others.
You see white folks posting about black folks who kill white folks and it’s barely mentioned in the media and you see black folks posting about the injustice when, like I mentioned before, justice was delivered with thoughtful deliberation.
Liberal whites cry racism because Zimmerman didn’t get time and conservatives just provoke them by mentioning again and again the black on white crimes they believe haven’t been covered adequately in the media.
My feeling, as I stand looking on Reason Island, is how we bridge that gap, mend fences and learn to get along better or whether we even can.
It seems the problem has only gotten worse, not better, it seems that racial tensions remain high.
Look locally at the sheriff appointment issue. Look at the school merger issue. The issues in these debates should be about qualifications in the sheriff’s matter and what is good for all students and taxpayers in the school matter.
White and black marched side by side during the nation’s Civil Rights struggle to obliterate years of essentially government-sanctioned racism. Now it seems those events are just a footnote and both sides are doing their best to take us back in time instead of moving us forward, going as far to criticize a simple Cheerio’s commercial because it featured an interracial couple.
As for me, I’ll just stay on my Reason Island and watch both sides perpetuate lies and half-truths about each other without even attempting to understand.
Until that time I will still roll my window up when I hear ear-ripping bass and ear drum-shattering motorcycles and remain loyal to Joe Bob’s mantra of being an equal opportunity offender — Lance Martin
