Extreme Care

Yesterday, I promised to help my friend with an errand after work. When I pulled in to her apartment complex, I got out of the car and immediately heard someone’s music blasting. I shrugged it off. I would only be bothered by the noise for a brief minute. I couldn’t really tell the genre, much less the song. I pressed my way to my friend’s car only to discover that it was her music. I knew the exact genre. I purchased the CD for her as a birthday gift the day before. It was Alicia Keys’ latest work and she was excited to get it. Now from outside the car all I heard was the bass and treble of the song. Inside I could clearly hear the words and the harmonies attached to the beat. The romanticism of Alicia crooning about lips she missed.

The other day on Facebook I learned that people believed that offense my friend committed by blasting her music was disrespectful enough to warrant losing your life for. I was stunned. Music? Music is universal, right? Everyone loves music in some form or aspect, right? We may not agree on the genre, but we can all agree that music is therapeutic to some. At least it is to most people I know. I had never imagined that someone would lose their life over music being played too loud. Until I saw in the news that just that had happened. I was outraged. Music? Loud music started an argument that would result in death? Seriously?

This box contains the remains of a high schooler who attends school maybe 5 minutes from where I live. Jordan Davis, 17, was murdered at a gas station after a trip to the mall with his friends on the day after Thanksgiving. News reports have quoted the shooter as saying he believed the kids were gangsters. He says he felt threatened. Even going as far as saying he thought he saw a gun. The police search showed no evidence of a gun in the teenager’s car. I want to make this not be about race. I want to tell you that I don’t believe it was racially motivated. That would be dishonest. It’s clear, at least to me, that the reason he thought these kids were gangsters is because they were African-Americans playing loud music. The irony of this is my friend, the young woman who was blasting her music. She’s a graduate of the same high school I live 5 minutes from. Though she is closing in on her 10 year reunion, she still looks 17. Guess what she does for a living? She writes. She lives every day trying to inspire people. Trying to make people believe they can live their dream. She’s college educated. Gainfully employed. Goes to church regularly and still does her grandma’s bidding without hesitation. She lives maybe 2 minutes by car from the gas station where the young man was shot. The errand she needed help with? Carrying a 30 pound box filled with books of her self-published poetry. Would he have considered her a gangster?  And what about me? The black guy who is the very embodiment  of what the media visually depicts as a hoodlum, with my waist length locks and scruffy beard.  Does society see me as a thug too? The guy who is more comfortable reading a book than watching TV. What of my 7-year-old nephew? Who gets straight A’s and loves Star Wars. Who kisses his mother and his sister every 10 minutes. Who cries if you speak to him in a harsh tone. Will he grow up to be viewed as a potential evildoer? What about my friend’s son who wears urban clothing, has reached the age of maturity, but still defers to his mother whether she is wrong or right out of respect. Will America only ever see us as thugs? As gang bangers? As miscreants? I don’t understand America. I don’t understand how loud music can justify killing someone. How long are we ever even at the gas station? 5 minutes tops. If he asked them to turn it down and they didn’t, what harm would have taken place from simply letting it go.   Someone on Facebook asked why Jordan had to wait to die to be seen as someone to be handled with “Extreme Care”. I agree wholeheartedly. Why don’t we handle each other with extreme care? Not out of fear. Not out of refusal to grasp the complexities of something that is much different from what you can comprehend. Why don’t we handle each other with extreme care because we all want to be treated with care? We all want to be treated like we are valuable. We all want to be treated like someone cherishes us. Why did Jordan have to die to be seen as something that should be treated gently? And what of Jordan’s parents? His dad let him go to the mall with his friends. His father is quoted as saying that the next time he laid eyes on his son, he was told not to touch him. He was now evidence in a case. Aren’t you always supposed to be able to come home from the mall? If you leave a passenger in the car at a gas station, aren’t you supposed to come out and find them the same way you left them? America, aren’t our babies always supposed to be treated with extreme care and return home to us unharmed? Well, aren’t they?