Straight outta Kirkwood

Some of y'all are peace
But even one too many
Is still a decent number
For the breeding of a beast

I finally got around to reading about the Kirkwood shooting from a few weeks ago. A black man ended his decade-long feud with the city, a feud described as legendary by the newspaper, by shooting several people at City Hall. I laid blame for the shooting squarely on Cookie Thornton for running around pulling triggers. He wasn't coerced, he wasn't ignorant of his actions. He killed people with malice aforethought. He could have continued the cycle of lawsuits and arrests. He could have given up after being barred from council meetings. He could have gotten a glass of lemonade or ice water. Not happy options, but better than killing. Then someone wrote to the newspaper, "Why am I not supposed to look at blacks with suspicion, disgust and fear?"

And the blame shifted. The blame raised up, scratched under its belly, and resettled on its other side. The blame made a nice groove for itself when I read from multiple people agreeing that Meacham Park, Thornton's neighborhood, should be razed and rezoned commercial. Meacham Park has had problems. Another resident killed a police officer two years ago. A (white) delivery driver was raped by two (black) men in MP. So it's a bad area. The color of your skin doesn't give you the power to turn it into either a prison or parking lot. You can't tell me that it's hyperbole or satire because it isn't outrageous enough. Swift gets taught in English classes because he advocated eating babies and everybody got the joke. Not that anyone tried to brush these statements off; they may not be completely serious but they wouldn't complain either. That's the problem, that's what earns the blame: if a few people think they can do this in a public forum, in print as well as on the internet, there are more who think they can do it intimately, face-to-face. With friends. With family. With passers-by. With coworkers. Interracially. Indiscriminately.

Hang on to your socks. This might be worse than Lubbock.