The Sad Constant

I've just begun standing-on-my head lessons. I need lessons because as a child, I was even more hopeless at gymnastics than I was at traditional sports. Thankfully, this period of my life pre-dated popular use of the word “spazz”.

So, yeah. Lessons.

My instructor is a nicely-muscled Oriental woman named Lexi, who prefers to be called Flexi. I know, I know. Her choice, right? Anyway, she's adept at contorting her body into all sorts of unnatural poses. For her, inverting the carbon-based life form's upright posture is as easy as spending money.

Me? I may as well be attempting to nail pudding to a wall.

So. You may well be asking yourself why does he even want to stand on his head? Especially at his age!

I seek this to better understand the rapidly-shifting world around me. You see, in my eyes the world is off its nut, and the best strategy towards understanding this new normal is to invert my own.

Capisce?

Take our new litmus test: police shootings. Like the conflicts they stem from, they happen all over, all the time.

This being 2021 America, 49.5% of the population feels they are entirely justified, all the time. The other 49.5% of the population believes they are wanton acts of race-based brutality and are never, ever justified.

Which leaves me and a few others in the one-percent who feel police shooting don't fit into one-size-fits-all categorization. That they originate from a hugely diverse set of circumstances and are subject to an ocean of factors that by their nature, often demand lightning-like responses.

Before going any further, I want to say I think it is a good thing we are examining them so closely. The taking of a human life, especially by an entity ostensibly there to protect them, isn't anything to take lightly.

In Chicago, we have the shooting of a thirteen year-old gang-banger caught in the act of, well, gang-banging. While I rue the influences and choices that led Adam Toledo to be firing at cars at 2:30 AM on a Monday morning, I can't quite bring myself to feel this is an unspeakable loss of human life.

The media has taken a millisecond of film in between Toledo's covert disposal of his gun and his turning to face the pursuing officer with hands raised and the officer's firing of his gun and turned it into a poster of police brutality and murder. A moment frozen for all of eternity.

For the one-percent of us still in possession of our faculties, we understand that given the conditions of the event, there was no way the officer could have known Toledo had disposed of the gun and was in the act of complying before he was shot.

This because we are talking about a tiny, infinitesimal fragment of time. And let's not forget, Toledo was an active, legitimate threat to public (that's you and me) safety.

But to 49.5% of the population, the officer may as well have blindfolded Toledo, tied him to a post, popped a cigarette in his mouth and shouted “Fire!” before dispatching the entirety of CPD's arsenal into his body.

If you say so.

Then we have the sixteen year-old girl in Columbus, Ohio, Ma'Khia Bryant.

Bryant, for unknown reasons, ended up a foster child. Despite this speed bump, she was liked and made her high school's honor roll. She posted videos about make-up and hair which were widely shared.

None of which explains how she ended up with a knife in her hands attempting to stab two co-residents of her foster home after an argument over house-cleaning. But she was. And did. The confrontation continued even after police showed up.

Again, my apologies for not belonging to either of the majority populations. But um, Bryant was in the act of murder. She was actively stabbing another person. Again, even after the police showed up. She showed no signs of abating.

Naturally, after the event ended bystanders (who, it should be pointed out, had done virtually nothing to sidetrack or end the confrontation) turned on the police. One of those assembled said “She's a (expletive) kid. Damn, are you stupid?”

Hmmm. Let's look at that real hard.

Granted the officer, after showing up, should have paused the confrontation long enough to make proper introductions and confirm the participant's ages. Then refreshments should have been served before the festivities were allowed to continue.

But the stupid cop, acting as stupid cops do, came upon what I'll call an active stabber. Bryant was in the act of stabbing someone, and after pushing them to the ground turned on another bystander and began assaulting them.

Bryant repeatedly ignored the cop's requests to cease and desist. She had a knife and was bent on using it.

Sadly, the thought-impaired bystander didn't offer an opinion as to what kind of response he would have preferred had Bryant been attacking him when the cop showed up. I'm going to take a crazy-ass, out of left field swing at this, but I'm guessing he wouldn't have wanted the cop to have first inquired as to Bryant's age before subduing her.

Am I right, bro?

Apparently, 49.5% of the population needs to hear this: a gun and a knife are dangerous, regardless of the age of the person wielding them. In fact, as Adolph Hitler himself learned through his infamous recruiting of the Hitler Youth, they are even more dangerous in the hands of someone given to black and white thinking.

Someone without a fully-developed sense of reason and consequence.

Predictably, the reaction to Bryant's death has been hysterical and extreme. Blind. Wildly inaccurate. She is innocent by virtue of her age—and nothing more. Her survivor's predictably rosy portrayals nonwithstanding, who was Ma'Khia Bryant? How did she end up in foster care? Why was a knife an acceptable response to an argument?

I pull back even further when I read the suggestions of Sheila Bedi (a civil right attorney) on how the Toledo foot chase should have unfolded. Her thought? The chase should have been abandoned. Yep. In essence, Toledo should have gone free since he is a victim of quote-unquote “society.”

Uh-huh. (It goes without saying that Bedi's was not one of the cars Toledo and his pal were shooting at that night.)

Jason Van Dyke and Derek Chauvin were clearly guilty of murder. The former should be serving a prison sentence commensurate with his crime. Hopefully, the latter will be.

But the cops who responded to the calls regarding Toledo and Bryant? Nope. By virtue of their profession, they were dropped into situations demanding immediate responses. I am confident neither is going to look back on their participation with the slightest sense of satisfaction.

Indeed, they will more-likely be haunted by them.

Can we simply mourn the tragedy of kids with no emotional center, be it a loving family or a strong parent or a true and good friend? Can we do that without shredding the people forced to respond to the worst in them?

Putting police into a position where they're all-guilty-all-the-time is as dangerous as anything a Republican could concoct. So is cloaking them in law enforcement's version of diplomatic immunity.

Police shootings need to be examined on an individual basis—not stuffed into all-or-nothing decisions that only serve a single—and highly politicized—demographic.

Oops! Gotta go. Lexi—I mean Flexi's—here. 

Wish me luck. I'm going to need it.