There we were, Dathan and myself. Dathan, a black guy, me, a white guy. My co-worker at the school we are employed. My friend. Dathan and I are not afraid to talk about our Christian faith or our dismay with what we see going on in the world today with regard to racial tension.
Though I did not want to trivialize our speaks in the moment, and know I am not trying to trivialize them now, if you are familiar with the movie “Remember the Titans”, I felt like we were Julius Campbell and Gary Bertier when they were talking together about the hate they were seeing in their newly integrated high school many years ago.
Though Dathan and I have shared experiences that have affected both of us, we always leave each other with a positive word. We look forward to making the rest of the day better. He has that affect on me and I hope and pray I have that affect on him.
I really did, even as a very young child, pay attention to the words of a song I sang at my Baptist Church when I was growing up. The song is “Jesus Loves the Little Children”….there is a line in that song the goes…”red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight….”. I took heed in those words as a youngster. By learning, through music, and through a friendship with an older black lady in Jackson, Mississippi, and being around good people, I knew and I know that we are all important. This is not to say that I have not been exposed to some folks that came from a different place and time than I did. I feel like that is what I am experiencing now in the front windshield too.
In the rear-view mirror I am reminded of folks that came from a time before me and had ingrained habits in language and belief that die hard.
Now looking forward, I see much of the same. I see a new generation that has not been taught like I was. I was taught that all lives matter. Now I see signs pointing out who matters and who is left out. There is nothing right about that.
If I can put in the conversation here, something that disturbed me more than anything I saw yesterday was a press conference in Washington State where the members of the press peppered a police spokesman about the tragic killings that happened this past Friday night in a mall there. It was a surreal press conference. The police spokesperson did not seem to be in charge. The media took over and it was scary. The law enforcement officer gave answers to the best of his ability and the media members were not satisfied. They acted like they deserved more information….more details…they sounded accusatory in their remarks. I was startled. These pencil pushers whose greatest fear is a deadline had no business acting like that. But, I suppose that is becoming the norm in our media-driven world. We all have what Doctor Emmett Brown called a “portable television studio” in Back to the Future. The cameras are rolling and the traditional media doesn’t always get the scoop like it used to. That is bound to cause some hurt feelings and fester acrid attitudes like the ones I witnessed from the Washington State press members.
Of course I have been asked about the Colin Kaepernick issue of kneeling during the national anthem. I have a few views on this. The first is…Merry Christmas to him. I don’t care what a second string quarterback has to say about much of anything. He is used to sitting. The truth is I was just as disgusted with that whole scenario while I was attending a Marshall Football game in Huntington a couple weeks ago when a guy sitting in front of me yelled out before the national anthem…”Okay! Everybody stand now!” He sounded like a smarty pants. To make matters worse, the Herd was playing Morgan State from Baltimore, a historically black college. Then the guy in front of me and a couple with him, spent most of the playing of the National Anthem turning their heads looking for someone not standing so they could be offended a little more. They reminded me of Colin Kaepernick.
The next week, I exchanged emails with both the head football coach and the athletic director of Morgan State. The national anthem was not the only thing I witnessed that was less than decent among the Herd fans I was sitting near. You see, we sit very close to the visiting bench at the Joan C. Edwards Stadium. Some things were yelled in the direction of the bench that were pretty rotten. I had enough. I spoke up and told the chief offending loud mouth that he was a bad example. He didn’t yell again. In my emails to Morgan State, I apologized for the rude fan behavior that went over the line. The responses I received were gracious and thankful. That is the way it is supposed to be.
So there is kneeling going on everywhere now.
Does the kneeling make me mad? Yes. Somewhat. If you had a son that once hung out of the door of a Blackhawk helicopter with a large machine gun between his legs trying to help good vs. evil, you would probably be mad too.
Does the kneeling make me wonder? No. It does not. Rebelliousness is in full flower thanks to Colin Kaepernick. I have heard that 11 and 12 year-olds on a team somewhere all knelt during the playing of the national anthem. They don’t know what they are doing anymore than kids that grew their hair to look like The Beatles did in 1964. Only this time the fad is much more serious than kids know or understand.
Does the kneeling make me sad? Yes. I wish all the folks protesting…red and yellow, black and white…were as interested in the statistic of child abuse as they are a chance to bust windows and throw tear gas cans back at the police or take a knee during a song.
I wish everyone loved the little children of the world.
Speaking the rights…
Danny Johnson