I just sent my kids to bed after a night of playing mom. In her absence, I'm hardly an adequate substitute. My cooking is suited for comfort, outdoors and easy, while my wife's is more complex, seasoned. My wife helps with homework and juggles the whiny demands of my youngest daughter, age 7. Tonight, my son peeled potatoes and helped me cut them to make homemade French fries. He's wanting to work in the kitchen more and with my wife's help, he can make rice and a basic General Tso's. Reycina, my little one, helps cut fruits and other vegetables for salad. Before my kids went to bed we did a round of Candy Land, UNO and some devotions. I could tell Reycina was a bit emotional. Earlier in the day I received a call from the nurse at her school. She dropped a bowl of soup on her skirt, was embarrassed, and apparently was upset enough to cry uncontrollably like she's been doing. I ended up whispering a prayer to her over the phone during Reading so she could go back to class. She came downstairs twice after being sent to bed and I eventually relented to allow her to sleep in ours. I'm a shallow replacement for my wife (she's at some Scentsy/Pampered Chef/Fru Fru kind of party women attend on weeknights). I caved because I had no more hugs left in me. No more reassurances that the anxiety she feels will go away.
A few weeks back during soccer, I told her not to "panic" when she's playing defense. She likes to reactively kick the ball out of bounds when the other team attacks, and while it slows the other team down, we could have easily kicked the ball upfield to keep possession. She then used the word "panic" when we had a parent-teacher conference when she explained why she sometimes has trouble in math class. "I panic sometimes," she says, with the sincerity of a little girl who wants the nurturing and attention of everyone she loves. It's a funny use of the word, for both in soccer and in life, but her anxiety sometimes gets the better of her. In her mind the word "panic" fits, it made sense to how she was feeling.
I'm seeing the same panic in the world around me. We want to shut down the borders and flights from West Africa in order to control Ebola, and this after 2 confirmed cases in America. How many people live in America, in Dallas where the infection occurred? Millions. I play a game called "Plague Inc." on my phone which eerily plays out a scenario where you can infect the world with a virus (not so fun now that Ebola is ravaging Africa. Suddenly the sarcasm of death isn't an escape as it was weeks ago.) The setting on Expert closes borders when half the world becomes infected. America is in Berserk mode. Someone sneezes in an airport and we contain them in plastic, roll them in duct tape and start digging the mass grave.
ISIS is affecting our lives too. My mother in law was informed that our oldest daughter hopes to do mission work in Tanzania. In my mother-in-law's mind, my daughter Lisa will be infected with Ebola, get beheaded, sold into slavery or all 3. We shouldn't have even told her she was going. But in other corners of the world, military families are on defcon alert from ISIS supporters who could be targeting them or their families through social media. A beheading happens in Oklahoma. The media claims it was workplace violence, but the panic contingency has us believe more is at stake. Mosques are suddenly the target of gun-toting, flag waving Americans.
Which brings me to Ferguson, Missouri.
I wrote a piece on the death of Trayvon Martin last year which you can feel free to read to know where I stand. As a supporter of police (the new word being used lately is an "apologists"), it's hard to get behind the death of Michael Brown, a teenager. We know some of the facts, or at least we think we know. Brown and a friend were seen stealing cheap cigars and intimidating a nearby store clerk. The men were later stopped for jaywalking or blocking the street, depending on the report. Some claim the cop in question, was stopping Brown because he was the suspect in the same crime that was broadcasts on the wire (although others claim the storeowner never informed police of the theft). What reads like a case of stubborn pride and machismo on both sides erupts into a fight for a gun (again, there was false information that Brown assaulted the cop and broke the cop's orbital bone, which ended up being faked), an attempted arrest and ultimately shots fired. Eyewitness claim Brown had his hands in the air (leading to the chant, "Hands Up, Don't Shoot!" by protesters), while the cop claims Brown charged him. Seven shots later, Brown lay dead in the street. Four hours later, his body still lay there for onlookers.
Panic.
Other cops across the nation are coming under fire too. Busting the window when a man won't give identification, tasering him. Another cop shoots a man who was stopped for a seat belt violation. Why is it that people of color all have cop-harassment stories? Why is it a black man was arrested for reportedly being in his own home because the neighbor didn't believe he lived there (the guy was adopted by a white family). A man in Detroit shoots a drunken teenage girl who is banging on his front door. Panic. Every black man in a hoodie is a suspect. Panic.
When I first was driven to write a blog about Ferguson, I was infuriated with some of the logic and condemnation I was seeing on Twitter. The cops were racists, the sheriff is racists. Brown was a teddy bear who wouldn't hurt anyone and was starting college the next day (with stolen cigars to celebrate, perhaps). With the case dragging on into a second month and no indictment, it makes those thoughts pretty trivial. Why hasn't there been a grand jury indictment? If there are those that demand justice, why does it feel like it hasn't been delivered?
The Brown case seemed to rip open old wounds. What do we see when a young black man is walking the street? There are times even in my thoughts where I see a kid wearing droopy pants and wonder why he can't just pull them up. Many of my African-American kids at school don't smile much, and sometimes they wear the same kinds of clothes, baggy pants, a hoodie sometimes, a cap turned sideways. I see a kid. Would it be different if I was wearing a badge and it was past curfew in a crime-riddled neighborhood?
On Twitter, the hashtag #ifIwasgunneddown provided the public with the snapshots of young, black men in photos that showed them giving the finger, smoking weed or looking like a "thug" next to a picture of them in graduation gowns, or smiling with friends, holding books while walking to class. Just the other day two black teens were killed when they exchanged shots with cops after holding up a Dollar General at gunpoint. The first picture the media shows of the young man in question is one of a young man lost, another unsmiling menace that the public can now write off as a thug. I question why young men of any persuasion would be taking pictures showing the middle finger, or smoking weed, for anyone to see. I have ex students who parade their fingers on their Facebook walls, or they stand with friends holding cash fanned out like a good hand in poker, holding up signs that have nothing to do with peace. They snarl at the camera, the thug selfie. They post videos of neighborhood fights and openly curse and brag about shooting "haters." I've begun to work with students on social media and how the world will see them based on what they project. For my girls, one shot of cleavage and they are considered a "ho", and for boys, "thugs." Parenting is all but gone too. Single, overworked moms rationalize the portrayals of their young boys as a faze they are going through. But when young men they that look like them are killed everyday, and some by cops, more by other young men who look like them too, your camera is only capturing survival mode, posturing selfies. The boy who blew out the candles at their birthday party is a long ago memory.
Protests continue in Ferguson. In the men's study I'm leading at church, we are focused on Satan's tactics. Indeed I see Satan's handprints on many facets of my life. He has a firm grip on the lives of many of my school families. Poverty, strife, fatherlessness, the distrust of teachers or the school. I see Satan's grip on the attitudes of many people, including those in my church or workplace. FML many of them posts on their Facebook. "I'm going to hell anyway." "You only live once." "I hate my job."
Especially panicking. I think the anxiety we all face is from that lack of control we hand over to God. I'm to blame too. I bite my nails, pick at the inside of my mouth. I let anger fester until it erupts on a loved one. I freak out on a kid at school when they do something trivial. We consume so much filth in our lives, from the news, from gossip, from our uncertainty and distrust, that the only reaction we have left is sarcasm, dismissal, ridicule or panic.
And tonight I feel overwhelmed. The news is noise in the background. More panic (now we're killing the dogs of Ebola patients). I don't have any more hugs for those that are panicking. I don't think I'd have enough anyway.
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